


The last person I want to see

by LoveRun



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: And I mean slow, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, BAMF Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Comfort, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Disability, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Geralt turns up but not until very far in, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Apologizes, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Apologies, Happy Ending, Hurt, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Multi, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Protective Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Slow Burn, Torture, War, Yennefer whump, blind Yennefer of Vengerberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:48:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveRun/pseuds/LoveRun
Summary: after the Battle of Sodden, Yennefer gets captured by Nilfgaard. if that wasn't bad enough, guess who her new cellmate is...
Relationships: Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach & Jaskier, Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach & Yennefer of Vengerberg, Fringilla Vigo & Jaskier, Fringilla Vigo & Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 131
Kudos: 375





	1. Chapter 1

Consciousness returns one sensation at a time. The aching cold of the manacles on her wrists and ankles that’s echoed by the collar around her neck. The sickly heat of the blood that seeps from her mouth and down her chin, soaking into the fabric of her dress so that it dries stiff and uncomfortable against her skin. The damp stone of the floor beneath her, the chill of the walls that surround her.

And the pain, oh. The pain defies categorisation. It is everywhere and all-encompassing.

She can hear the faint sounds of the army outside. She’d been brought through the camp before being shoved into the holding cell, already wearing her new Dimeritium accessories that Fringilla had fastened around Yennefer’s limbs herself. Yenn had seen the vast number of Nilfgaardian soldiers, heard the way their injured groaned and cursed, smelled the stink of their horses, but she hadn’t been able to glean any information that could be useful in an escape attempt. 

The bustling sea of black cloaks and armour emblazoned with the emblem of the sun had parted before Fringilla’s silver-grey Sorceress robes as she marched through the crowd. Hostile eyes had peered at Yennefer from under helmets with bird wings attached, the violence in the eyes of the soldiers barely controlled.

Every one of them would be dead by now if she had access to her Chaos. They would be dead as soon as she could access it again. 

Fringilla had led the way to the general’s tent with her head held high and a smug look that Yennefer didn’t remember her having back when they were both students at Aretuza. Clearly her former classmate had changed more than Yennefer had realised.

Yennefer had been flanked by two guards like some market thief being arrested. They were the kind who would shove and hit if their victim didn’t move fast enough, so Yennefer hadn’t given them the opportunity. She strode fast as her shackles let her, practically stepping on Fringilla’s feet and leaving the soldiers to hurry after her in their heavy armour. When they reached the large tent at the centre of the camp, the guards had fallen back and taken up position on either side of the flap that served as a door to the general’s inner sanctum.

Inside the general’s tent, a man with an air of malice and comically sharp cheekbones had been stood leaning over a map of the Continent which was spread over a table. The desk was large enough that it must have been conjured by magic; no sensible army would bother carting something that size around when some siege weapons were smaller and easier to manoeuvre. The man’s egret-winged winged helmet was tossed carelessly on the seat of a chair in the corner, the collar of his shirt loose about his throat.

The general’s armour had been piled in a corner where he’s flung it, barely dusty – he clearly hadn’t partaken in the battle, Yennefer had realised with the scorn of someone who’d fought in the very thick of it, who had _been_ the eye of the storm. A squire had been picking up the armour carefully, draping it over one arm to take away and clean. When the general had realised he had company, he’d clicked his fingers imperiously to get the squire’s attention, then dismissed him with a brusque wave of his hand without raising his head. Yennefer’s eyes narrowed.

“Cahir,” Fringilla spoke softly, like always. “I’ve brought you someone.”

“Not now,” the man snapped. “I’m busy.”

“You’ll want to see this,” Fringilla promised.

The man – Cahir, Fringilla had called him – whirled around, glaring and looming over them. It would have been intimidating, if Yennefer wasn’t used to being glowered at by Archmage Tissaia de Vries herself. Fringilla was a veteran of Tissaia’s glares too, of course, and had seemed equally unimpressed by his tactics. Yennefer wasn’t surprised; she knew that Fringilla was more than capable of removing this man and his stupid helmet from the Continent without breaking a sweat or leaving a trace. But, for some reason, she hadn’t.

“Who is this supposed to be?” Cahir demanded after barely a glance in Yennefer’s direction. Yennefer couldn’t help her smirk, the quirk of an eyebrow at this boy’s rudeness.

“This is Yennefer of Vengerberg,” Fringilla told him. “She’s one of the most powerful mages on the continent.”

 _The_ most powerful mage, Yenn had corrected internally, though of course she hadn’t admitted that out loud. No sense in letting the soldier know who he’d captured. And there was never any harm in letting your enemies underestimate you – that is, until you killed them, of course. At that point it’s generally gratifying, even if not strictly necessary, to put on a spectacle. The look in someone’s eyes when they realised who exactly they’ve pissed off and how much they’re about to regret it is one of Yenn’s favourite sights.

Cahir had been excited, then. “The Witcher’s sorceress?”

“…she has been associated with the Witcher, yes. But there’s more she can…”

“He was my Witcher, actually, not the other way around.” Yennefer had told him in her best drawl. “Emphasis on the _was._ He’s nothing to me now, nor I to him.”

“Whatever you say, Madam Sorceress,” Cahir replied with a grimace that may have been meant as a smile. “I am Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach. It’s a pleasure to have you here at my humble camp. We’ll do great things together. Well done, Fringilla, we can use her to get to the Witcher, and therefore the Princess. Excellent.”

“You’re right, Cahir. But she can do more for us. We can use her to…”

“That won’t be necessary. We only need her for the Witcher. Take her away.” Cahir turned without ceremony and began poring over the map again.

Fringilla and Yennefer exchanged glances behind his back. Without words, they both managed to convey the sentiment: _Our viewpoints may be diametrically opposed, and I may hate you and everything you stand for, but I will at least credit you with not being Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach._

The moment of understanding was so strong, so similar to those they had shared in Aretuza’s greenhouse that Yennefer had to pause. She’d rolled her shoulders to check that they were straight, that her hunch was as absent as their childhood camaraderie.

To Yennefer’s amazement, Fringilla had accepted Cahir’s dismissal. She turned, her hands still clasped sedately in front of her as they had been since they’d closed the Dimeritium collar around Yennefer’s neck, and led the way out of the tent.

The soldiers who had stood guard outside the tent fell into step beside Yennefer. She ignored them, striding over the churned earth of the camp after Fringilla with all the speed she could muster. The sunset was just beginning to paint the clouds yellow. Yennefer tried not to see it as the same shade Sabrina’s hair had been as she’d driven an arrow into the soft flesh of Yennefer’s stomach. She failed.

“What are you hoping to achieve here, Fringilla?” She asked. “You lost the Hill. King Foltest’s army will chase you South all the way to Nilfgaard. You’ll lose all the ground you gained. Princess Cirilla is most likely dead – how could a child survive this war by themselves, with half the Continent after them?”

“Perhaps she’s had help.” Fringilla spoke pleasantly, as if she was passing the time of day at a banquet rather than leading Yennefer to a holding cell after stripping her of her Chaos with Dimeritium shackles. Two can play at that game, Yennefer had decided.

“Yes perhaps. Or perhaps she’s crossed to another Sphere, you never know…” alright, Yenn will admit that barb wasn’t up to her usual standard of snark. But she’d just won a battle basically by herself, and exhaustion is playing a symphony over the entirety of her body and mind and it was the best she could come up with at the time. “What do you want from me? You know I can’t help you find Geralt.”

“You can’t help with finding the Witcher, that’s true. Nilfgaard’s spy network has known that your relationship with him has been over for a while, something that’s confirmed by a cursory glance at your mind now that the Dimeritium’s taken down your defences. But that’s only what Cahir wants.” Fringilla came to a halt outside a tent, much smaller and scruffier than Cahir’s. “I have other plans. He’s right about one thing, though: we’re going to do great things together, Yennefer.”

Yennefer had sighed. “You’re a mage, Fringilla. The best in our class, after me, though Sabrina would never admit it. You shouldn’t need someone else to do great things, not even me. You should do them yourself.”

Fringilla had held Yennefer’s gaze, shaken her head like she pitied her, which was ridiculous and sent a bolt of rage through Yennefer’s arms. But without access to her Chaos, there was nothing she could do to wipe that new and unpleasant smug look off Fringilla’s face. Yet.

“It’s a shame you still cling to those outdated and unhelpful things we were taught in Aretuze, Yennefer. In Nilfgaard, we know that when one of us prospers, all prosper. Rising tides lift all ships. Working together is the only way to get things done.”

“Maybe for you,” Yennefer had sneered. “I’ve never been much of a team player. Never saw the point, really. Other people just get in the way.”

Fringilla had just smiled, and indicated the manacles circling Yennefer’s wrists. “You’ll soon learn. By the way, how do you like the jewellery I gifted you?”

Yennefer stiffened. “It’s not really my colour. I prefer onyx, as you know. I’m sure this particular shade of blue-grey would flatter you more. It goes with your robes.”

“Very good, Yenna. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed the special feature of the shackles? I designed it myself, you know. I thought you’d appreciate my craftsmanship.”

Yennefer knows she did not frown, or look down at her bindings in concern. Something of her unease must have shown in her face, however, as Fringilla suddenly looked triumphant. Or, as triumphant as the eerie calm that had settled over her since her appointment to Nilfgaard allowed her to be.

“You’ve not noticed yet. Never mind, Yenna. You’ll work it out soon, I’m sure.

“Don’t call me Yenna,” Yennefer hissed, railing against Fringilla’s patronising tone. Fringilla had just smiled wider and opened the flap of the tent.

Yennefer could see that the inside was ensorcelled to be a stone prison cell, presumably to make it harder to escape from than your usual military camp barracks. Yenn could tell from even a brief look that it’s well-enchanted, and therefore will be difficult to break out of. She cursed internally.

Then she’d squared her shoulders, stepping inside before the guards behind her had the chance to push her in. Fringilla had held the flap open for a moment longer, letting the daylight spill carelessly over the bare floor of the cell.

“One last thing, Yenna,” she’d called.

Yenn had turned around instinctively. Fringilla had gestured at her, tracing some magical symbol in the air in front of her with her free hand. It had been something complicated that Yennefer hadn’t been able to make out, the backlighting of the low sun making her squint. “That’s for your efforts on the Hill. Rest now, Yenna. I’ll be seeing you soon.”

With that, Fringilla had dropped the tent flap and darkness had swallowed the cell. Yennefer had waited for her eyes to adjust, but even after what must have been several hours, she could make out nothing of the room she’d been left in. Fringilla must have enchanted it to keep the light out as well as keep captives inside. 

Yennefer hated to admit it, but Fringilla was good.

Yenn had been here ever since. She didn’t know how long, without light to help her mark the passage of time, but she would guess it had been a week. Food appeared by the door by magic twice a day. The bucket in the corner that she’d found with groping hands on her initial quest to acquaint herself with the cell emptied itself with the same regularity. The magical nature of the food and waste disposal meant no interaction with guards, no chance to overpower them or persuade them to help her escape.

Well. It wouldn’t be as fun if Fringilla had made it easy for her, Yenn tells herself.

Her body is in the worst state she’s known it in her ninety-odd years of life. She hasn’t been able to heal from the Battle without her Chaos, and there isn’t even any straw to soften the press of the stones against her skin. Even sleeping with the pigs had been more comfortable than this bare stone floor with her battle injuries untended, her access to Chaos cut off and nothing to occupy her mind.

To distract herself, Yennefer tends her anger. 

She keeps her fury carefully tucked away, safe at her core. It’s a careful balance; let it cool too much, and it won’t have the vigour it needs to power you through the hardest times. Let it spill over at the wrong time, and you’ll spend it before you’re ready and be empty when the time comes. It needs to be kept simmering just below boiling point, so that the slightest poke of the embers beneath it can set it boiling over.

Yennefer is good at keeping the balance, by now. She’s had more than one lifetime to practice, after all, and she’s used to keeping it close for decades if necessary. She has a good memory; she doesn’t forget. The bones of her stepfather are even now buried under the pigpen he’d forced her into back when she’d been young and stupid enough to try and make friends by returning a flower. She’d buried him there after she’d tired of his terrified apologies and pleas for mercy that had been too little, too late, even though they had been music to her ears. Maybe she’ll put Fringilla and Cahir there too, when she’s done with them.

She’s been keeping her eyes closed mostly. It’s not like having them open is any use without light, after all. That talk about your other senses improving to make up for when you can’t use another is bullshit, she’s discovered. Her hearing hasn’t improved, but she _is_ paying more attention to it in the absence of illumination. This extra awareness of sound means she picks up the approaching footsteps earlier than she might have if there had been any light to distract her.

She doesn’t think much of the footsteps initially. People pass by the tent at all hours of night and day, with no concern for who might be trying to sleep inside it. She assumes it’s just another patrol marching past, or an infantryman skiving off his duties, and goes back to internally cataloguing the ingredients she’ll need for the spells she’s planning to cast once she’s free. There are a lot of them.

After a while, though, she can’t ignore the voices that join the footfalls. The Nilfgaardian accents are difficult to make out through the walls of her cell, but it sounds like they’re chivvying along another prisoner. A prisoner who is none too pleased to be here. She can sympathise.

“Get a move on, you,” one guard orders.

“Yes, yes, I wouldn’t want to be late to sit around in a holding cell all day… ow!” the voice, oddly familiar though Yennefer can’t quite place it just yet, cuts off with a thump. The soldier must have commanded silence with their fist.

“What’s that? Give it here.” Another voice demands.

“Hey, that’s my… get your hands off her!” There’s a discordant twang and the laugher of the guards. “No no no not the lute!” the prisoner laments.

Yennefer’s eyes snap open and she sits up against the wall. _No._

It must be night, because no light enters the cell when they open the door and shove the new prisoner into the room with Yennefer.

“Have fun with the sorceress. Mind she doesn’t scratch your eyes out!” The first guard laughs. She hears her new cellmate stumble into her dank prison, smells the familiar perfume of honeysuckle and lavender. 

“Jaskier?!” She hisses.

“…Yennefer!?” the bard replies.

“Fuck,” they curse in unison.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer tells Jaskier that she's fine. Jaskier doesn't believe her. 
> 
> Jaskier's right.

“What are you doing here?!” Jaskier demands.

“I fancied a holiday, and I heard that the Nilfgaardian army is lovely this time of year. What the fuck do you _think_ I’m doing here, Jaskier? Oh wait, I forgot – you _don’t_ think.”

Jaskier’s features are obstructed by the darkness, but Yennefer can practically _feel_ his eye roll. She hears a hollow _thunk_ as he sets his lute on the ground, and then a rustle as he drops himself onto the floor much less carefully.

“What am I doing here, I hear you ask. Well, I was in Cintra.” He tells her after absolutely no invitation. “I was outside the city walls when the massacre happened, visiting a very lovely farmer on the outskirts on Calanthe’s lands, and I thought I’d been lucky and escaped the carnage. But then this morning I ran into a black cloak patrol and here I am.”

“Lucky me,” Yennefer injected the two words with all the sarcasm she could muster, which wasn’t as much as she might have expected. After a week of total isolation, barring some very brief and extremely unpleasant visits from Fringilla, she was glad to have someone to talk to. She was perfectly willing to admit that she wasn’t a good enough person to be sad on Jaskier’s behalf that he’d been captured, if it meant gaining an ally for herself. And as conversation partners went, the bard was one of the better candidates among her acquaintance, being experienced at court banter and – though she’d never admit it – intelligent enough to keep up with her. He was certainly better with his words than some other people she didn’t care to mention.

Her sarcasm didn’t seem to bother Jaskier. Before she had time to say anything else, he declared: “Dark in here, isn’t it?”

“Is it really? I hadn’t noticed. It should make you feel right at home, though. Things like you normally live under some dank rock somewhere, don’t they?”

This actually won her a chuckle from the bard. “C’mon, Yezza. You can do better than that. I expected more from you.”

Yezza. Despite the cold boring into her joints, the burning ache of the wound to her stomach and the roaring loss of her Chaos, the name made her lips twitch upwards, threatening to smile.

Jaskier had first called her Yezza by accident, one night at a banquet and deep in his cups. She’d been a guest, he’d been working – not that that had stopped him from drinking far too much of the wine that had flowed freely all night. Geralt had had to support him, in the end, dragging Jaskier into the gardens outside the banquet hall while the bard leaned against the Witcher’s shoulder and slurred his words into the night air.

Yennefer, bored of the banquet and its dull attendees, had followed them into the warm summer evening. Cicadas sang in the bushes and starlight illuminated the grounds, the noise of the party falling away as she tracked the Witcher and the bard through the gardens. Geralt had laid Jaskier down on a bench, cradling the bard’s head in his lap and laughing as Jaskier berated the world for his self-induced state. The Witcher must have heard her coming, but Jaskier had been oblivious until she had been basically on top of them, heels clicking on the stone path that led to their sheltered alcove.

“Why was there so much wine, Geralt? I can’t be expected not to drink it if it’s just there, that would be _rude_ and I… there she is! Yezza! How’s it going?”

She’d stopped on the path, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrow. Perhaps she would have retaliated further, but Jaskier’s look of horror when he realised what he’d said, coupled with Geralt’s look of surprised confusion as he looked to see what her reaction would be, had been too funny.

Fucking with Geralt was too much fun to pass up. So instead of eviscerating Jaskier on the spot, she’d replied: “Not bad, Jayjay. I’m all the better for being able to hold my drink, unlike some people…”

Jaskier had gasped, pantomiming offence, while Geralt looked even more hilariously perplexed. Having faced no repercussions the first time, Jaskier had seemed to decide that he could get away with calling her that whenever he liked, though never in front of anyone other than Geralt. And Yenn… didn’t actively dislike it, so she let it pass. No sense depleting her Chaos for something so small.

When she had Chaos to deplete, that is. The Dimeritium had put a stop to that, of course. She scowled. _Not for long,_ she promised herself.

“Yez?” Her head snapped up as his voice called her back from her thoughts.

“What?” 

“I said, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped.

“Yep, good, yep. Except you’re not, are you? I have experience of noticing when someone’s trying to pretend they’re not injured, you know.”

“Of course I’m injured, Jaskier. King Foltest’s stupid reinforcements came too late. No one got away unscathed.” Yennefer remembered the eerie silence as she had called out with her mind to her fellow mages: “Can anybody hear me?”, only to receive no response, not even from Tissaia. She shook her head.

“Wait, Yennefer. You were at the Battle of Sodden Hill?”

“Yes.”

There was a scrabbling sound as Jaskier shuffled across the few feet of space that divided them, close enough that she could feel the heat emanating off his body.

“Oh, excellent! I just wish I had a pen and my notebook. You have to tell me everything! What happened first? Don’t leave anything out…”

In his excitement, he touched her forearm. It was just a light brush really, but it was enough to jostle her. Enough to make the sharp edges of the Dimeritium manacles scrape against the already-raw skin of her wrists, to send a searing pain through the stab wound on her abdomen. She hissed, wrenching her arm away from him – which only disturbed her aching body even more, of course.

Jaskier withdrew his hand instantly.

“Shit, Yennefer, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… are you bleeding?”

Yennefer forced herself to breathe into her chest so as not to move her stomach unnecessarily. “It’s fine,” she managed through gritted teeth.

“Yes, of course. You sound fine. That is the voice of someone who’s fine, for sure.”

She wants to tell him to shut up, but another wave of pain steals her breath and all she can do is clench her teeth, fingernails digging into her palms as she waits for it to crest and ebb. She may groan; she can’t say for sure.

When she’s able to pay attention, Jaskier is still talking. Of course he is still talking.

“I’m quite good at patching people up, you know. You tend to pick these things up on the Path. Maybe I can help? Really, Yez, you don’t sound good. You haven’t told me to go and fuck myself in _minutes,_ and that’s when I know I need to worry…"

Gods, fine. If it’ll get him to stop.

“The manacles are digging into my arms,” she moves her arm slightly to make the chain linking the metal circles around her wrists clank in demonstration. “And I have an arrow wound to the stomach, courtesy of an old school friend.”

“An _arrow wound!?_ Hells, Yenn, you really need to rethink your definition of _fine_ , for Freya’s sake! Just… fuck. Just stay there. I think I saw some bread by the door when they pushed me in…”

Jaskier’s warmth disappears from her side for a moment as he retreats to the door, only to return even more close to her. “Yes, perfect. It’s mouldy.”

“’Perfect, it’s mouldy’? You and I have very different standards, Jayjay. But we knew this already.”

“I mean it’s perfect to make a poultice. Can’t have your wound becoming infected,” Jaskier’s fingers are busy as he talks, presumably preparing the bread for use on her wounds, tearing off the mould and mixing it with some of the water from the flask that had appeared with the food earlier. 

“I’ll take your word for it,” she tells him sceptically. “Healing’s not my speciality. I’m the one that creates the need for healing, usually.”

He snorts. “I know,” he tells her as he works. Eventually, he’s ready. He reaches for her, then stops himself, his hands hovering over her abdomen. “Can I?”

“Fine,” she tells him. His hands are gentle as he spreads the balm on her abdomen. She does not make a sound, but can’t help a sharp intake of breath as his fingers touch the inflamed skin.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, softening his touch. When he’s covered the wound, he applies more of the balm to the welts on her wrists, ankles and neck. It smells foul, but it’s cool and soothing on her abused skin.

“Thank you,” she tells him when he’s done.

“You’re welcome,” he replies, and she can hear the smile in his voice.

The door to their cell swings open. It’s still dark outside, but Yennefer doesn’t need light to know who’s come visiting. Only one person is allowed to come and go from this cell as she pleases.

“Hello, Fringilla.” Yennefer lets all the boredom from the last few days ring through those two words. She will not give the other mage the satisfaction of hearing fear in her voice.

Fringilla can see her, of course. She’ll have cast some night vision spell on herself that will enable her to see Yennefer and her reactions as well as if they were in a sunlit room together. Being at a disadvantage is not new to Yennefer, but it hasn’t been the norm for a while. It makes her itch beneath her skin, forces her remember why she was determined to change her future in the first place. Reminds her why she had thought any price worth paying to make sure she was never helpless again. 

“Yenna,” Fringilla responds.

Yennefer flinches, though she’s given up telling Fringilla not to call her that. It only encourages her, after all. Yenn hadn’t had her down as the type who would enjoy something like that, but then a lot of things about Fringilla had changed since they were at Aretuza.

“How do you like your new cellmate?” Fringilla asks when the childhood nickname fails to get a rise.

“I’d rather share with a wyvern,” Yennefer replies without missing a beat, knowing that Jaskier knows better than to take offence. Just as she knows that Fringilla wouldn’t let him stay if she thought that sharing her cell is actually what Yenn wants.

“Yeah? Well, I’d rather bed down with a basilisk.” Jaskier responds quicky. The back-and-forth of the banter so close to normal that it’s almost comforting. Yennefer feels it bolster her slightly, alleviating some tiny portion of the hardships she’s suffered. She’s pathetically grateful.

“Yes, well. Amusing as this is, I can’t stay long. I’m needed elsewhere. I’ve just come to harvest what you’ve gathered for me, Yenna.”

Yennefer does not pale, does not shrink away against the wall. She knows because she very carefully does not pale, or shrink, with a skill that has been hard won over the years. The last eight or so decades learning how to control her actions convincingly was well spent.

She hears Fringilla advance, brushing Jaskier aside as she does. She kneels in front of Yennefer, and takes hold of a manacle with each hand. Yennefer feels the fury uncurl and writhe in her stomach at the thought of what Jaskier is about to witness, how he’ll see her reduced and pathetic and there’s nothing she can do to stop it…

It begins. The pain in her ankles, her neck, her stab wound pales in comparison to the sensations that bloom when Fringilla touches her bonds. It feels like the very marrow is being wrenched from her bones, like she’s being pulled apart by claws. She clamps her mouth shut, but nevertheless a whine escapes without her permission.

“What… what are you doing to her?” Jaskier asks. There’s anxiety in his voice that Yennefer would find unbearable under normal circumstances, but she can’t spare the mental energy at the moment. Every scrap of willpower she has is going into keeping herself quiet, because if it doesn’t she will scream, and scream, and once she starts she doesn’t know if she’d be able to stop.

Fringilla answers him instead.

“These manacles are Dimeritium. Normally it acts as a magical block, stops the person wearing it from accessing Chaos. But these shackles are of my own design. Instead of blocking Chaos, they siphon it away and store it, allowing me to access it later.”

“You mean… you’re draining her?” Jaskier is trying to keep emotion out of his voice, to avoid betraying anything. He’s failing.

Fringilla laughs softly. “Yes. You see, thanks to Yennefer I lost several of my best mages in the Battle. Chaos demands sacrifices, you see. But as she’s the reason my supplies are running low, it’s only fair she replenishes me. She’s really quite powerful, you know. Taking this much Chaos from anyone else would suck them dry. But she can survive it.”

“She doesn’t seem like she’s going to survive…” Jaskier says with concern.

Fringilla doesn’t answer that, just redoubles her efforts. Yennefer feels another layer of her Chaos get ripped away from her, and sways with the effort of not collapsing. Jaskier curses softly from where he sits impotently across the cell.

After an eternity, Fringilla finally seems satisfied. Yennefer feels utterly depleted, though not quite to the point of death. It’s as if Fringilla knows exactly how much she can take before killing her, and takes just a fraction more than that each time. Which, of course, is exactly her intention.

“There we go,” Fringilla says as if she’s just given Yennefer a gift. Yenn feels Fringilla unclip the spent shackles from around her arms, only to instantly replace them with a fresh set ready to steal and hoard another day’s worth of her Chaos. “See you in two days, Yenna.”

There is cold stone beneath her cheek. She must have slumped to the floor at some point without realising. From her place on the ground, she hears the door click closed behind Fringilla. Jaskier manages to wait until Fringilla’s footsteps have died away before running to her side.

“Fuck, are you alright?”

She wants to swat his frantic hands away from where they are feeling her brow. Another, deeper part of her that wouldn’t be allowed out if she wasn’t so beaten down wants to sink into his touch and let him soothe her. 

“Yennefer? Say something, please…”

She tries to open her mouth and respond, but her body won’t obey her commands. The last thing she hears is Jaskier’s voice calling her _Yez_ in that infuriating tone of his before she slips into unconsciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yenn and Jaskier try and come up with a plan, only to be interrupted by a terrible realisation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there they go, just... spouting exposition again.
> 
> bit of a wordy one, this chapter. there's action coming soon i promise!

“If you tell me you’re fine,” Jaskier tells her with a note of hysteria in his voice as Yennefer rouses, “I’m going to scream.”

Yennefer groans. The floor is too cold beneath her, the damp permeating her skin and making it waterlogged and breakable, but sitting up is impossible. She does not have the strength.

Nevertheless, she forces herself upwards until she can lean back against the wall for support. Her brain registers with surprise that the manacles hurt less than they usually do. Curious, she reaches her fingers beneath one of the bindings and finds it’s been padded with material. She tests the fabric between her thumb and index finger and recognises the fine calico that Jaskier prefers for his undershirts. He’s used his own clothes to cushion her skin against the metal.

The first thing she thinks is that it’s a stupid thing for him to have done. He’ll freeze in this frigid prison even without giving up some of his clothing. But some deeper part of her is touched.

“So that’s why you haven’t destroyed the entire Nilfgaardian army yet? Because they’ve been draining you?” She can hear him pacing back and fore across the cell, apparently too agitated to sit still.

“Using me as a fucking vessel to be emptied? Yes.” Talking hurts, but not having a distraction from the pain of having her Chaos stripped from her hurts more. The agony of Fringilla’s visit still reverberates through her body. Talking it is.

“Why doesn’t she take it from her own bloody mages?” Jaskier demands. He’s angry, practically vibrating with it.

“You heard Fringilla. She burned through practically a whole Brotherhood’s worth of Mages in the attack on Sodden Hill. She needs some other reserve of Chaos to dip into to keep her enchantments going without them.” The sound of dripping water comes from somewhere in the dank cell, loud in the blackness.

“You mean she pushed them so hard that they’re too weak to enchant anymore? That’s barbaric…” he begins.

“No,” Yennefer interrupts. She’s possibly being too brusque, but it’s hard to rein in her voice when there’s so much pain and exhaustion and no outlet to pour them into. “I mean she drained them until they were dried up husks that dissolved into ash where they stood. Literally. That’s what happens when you use too much Chaos at once. Fringilla never was good at keeping the balance.”

The memory of their first day in the greenhouse at Aretuza flashes to the front of Yennefer’s mind. Fringilla’s excitement at being the first to lift her rock by magic, only for that joy to dissolve into screams when she’d seen what that small use of Chaos had done to her hand. Normally she would drop the image into Jaskier’s mind to save herself from having to explain further, but the Dimeritium stops her.

From Jaskier’s horrified gasp, she assumes his imagination has provided images of his own.

“And that’s what she’s doing to you?” He asks, aghst.

“Not quite. Not all the way, or you’d be having this conversation with a pile of dust.”

“That might be an improvement,” he jibes without malice.

“At least it would spare me being conscious of your incessant chattering,” she tells him lightly.

A smell reaches her, the aroma of slightly off meat and herbs.

“Food’s here!” Jaskier announces. “By magic, too. The accommodation’s not up to much but at least the room service is good…”

A moment later he’s pushing a bowl of lukewarm stew into her hands. She takes it slowly, unsure if she has the strength to hold it up. After a moment she decides she doesn’t, and has to set it on the floor and lean over the bowl to scoop spoonfuls of the soup into her mouth. She’s just glad the darkness masks her weakness from Jaskier’s eyes.

Jaskier settles down next to her, so that they’re arm-to-arm. The unexpected warmth of his body against hers is so pleasant it’s almost enough to make her gasp. She leans into him slightly, even though perhaps she shouldn’t. Tissaia would definitely say she shouldn’t, but Yennefer has never been interested in not doing what she wants. What’s the point of everything she’s done, everything she’s fought for, if she can’t have exactly what she desires exactly when she desires it? 

Jaskier hums happily and burrows closer to her. He’s always been happy to indulge himself in what he wants, too, after all. In some ways, she reflects, they really are quite similar.

The stew is disgusting, the meat in it stringy and tough and boiled tasteless. It’s probably horsemeat being used to pad the rations as the retreating army runs out of supplies and grows desperate. Nevertheless, she feels it return some life to her. She refuses to feel glad, knowing that any progress she makes will be torn away from her the next time Fringilla visits.

Jaskier keeps up a running commentary as he eats, describing how he feels about the food (“Not the worst I’ve had, truly, though the chef needs someone to sit them down and explain what seasoning is…”) to the camp they’d both been dragged through to get to their prison (“Dozens of campfires and no one singing at any of them! They’re a dour lot, these Nilfgaardians, aren’t they? It’s the religion of the Great Sun, I suppose, though why the sun hates fun I don’t know…”) to the state of the Continent “War. I hate to admit it, but Yarpen Zigrin was right when he said Nilfgaard would sweep the North.”

Most people, knowing what happened on the dragon hunt, would shy away from mentioning it. Yennefer’s glad that Jaskier doesn’t feel the need to.

“Have you seen him since the Mountain?” She asks, knowing Jaskier will know exactly who she’s talking about. Her bowl is empty now, but her stomach feels even more vacant – she’s still starving. There’s a quiet clank as she resignedly drops her spoon into the empty vessel of the bowl.

“No, Yez. He made it clear he didn’t want me around. And you know me, I’m not one to outstay my welcome.” He’s speaking lightly, but a bed of pain runs beneath the calm waters of his voice. It’s crusted over, though. Healing, if not quite healed just yet.

“Does making an unplanned exit out of a second story window count as not outstaying your welcome now?” She asks, laughing.

“It does, actually! Don’t underestimate the skill it takes to climb down a trellis while pulling your trousers up. You’re just as bad as the Witcher. Geralt didn’t appreciate my talents either, the heathen.”

“Yes, I heard.”

Jaskier splutters. “You heard!? I didn’t have you down as an eavesdropper, Yennef… no, actually. I absolutely did have you down as an eavesdropper. I don’t know why I’m surprised.” She feels him nudge half a bread roll into her hand, and her fingers close around it reflexively.

“Calm down, Jayjay. Geralt was shouting that day on the mountain and I’d only just walked away. I couldn’t have missed it if I’d tried.” She bites into the bread. It’s hard, threatening to chip her perfect teeth, but it’s better than nothing.

The silence stretches between them for a moment. She should thank him for the bread, she supposes. And for tending her wounds, for ripping up his shirt to give her some relief. 

Instead, she says “So why did they capture you? What does Nilfgaard want with a bard? Will you be composing odes to the Great Sun and the Emperor?”

“Urgh, gods no.” Jaskier shudders theatrically, and Yennefer feels it where his upper arm is pressed against hers. “They want information, I suppose.”

She snorts. “As my friend Sigi once said, what information could a bard have that would be useful to anyone?”

Sigi, of course, is Sigismund Dijkstra. There’s no telling who might be listening to the conversation between captives in a cell, so Yennefer can’t risk naming him properly. Jaskier will understand, though. Of course a travelling bard, especially one as bright as Jaskier, can pick up quite a lot of sensitive information. Dijkstra knows that too, which is why he had long ago recruited Jaskier into the Redanian Secret Service.

Jaskier twitches. “You know Sigi? Well well, what a small world.” Yennefer hums the affirmative. She dislikes Dijkstra, though she has worked with him on occasion. She’s mildly annoyed that Jaskier hadn’t guessed that she would know; not everyone is as clueless as Geralt, after all, and it’s not that hard to work out that Jaskier’s lovable buffoon front is at least partly an act to conceal a deadly intellect beneath. People who are preening idiots and nothing more don’t become Masters of the Seven Liberal Arts, after all.

Jaskier continues, shrugging. “But you’re right. I don’t know anything. I hope our Nilfgaardian friends won’t be too disappointed.” 

“What information do they want?” She probes. She hears a rat scurry across the floor, its claws scratching against the stone. 

“Oh, the location of a certain Wolf’s hiding place. But like I’ve told them, I don’t know where it is…”

Yennefer picks up on the wordplay and can’t help but smile. Jaskier’s not lying: he doesn’t know _where_ it is. But he certainly knows what it’s called. But Nilfgaard won't hear it from him. 

Jaskier clears his throat, apparently keen to change the subject.

“So, when Fringilla does her…” Yenn feels Jaskier’s arm move as he makes an expansive gesture that she assumes is meant to encompass the entire concept of siphoning magic “draining thing. If she doesn’t take all of it so that you don’t crumble into dust… does she leave you enough to get us out of here?”

Yennefer rolls her eyes. “Oh yes, I’ve got enough to make a portal. I’ve just been staying here because I like the food. What do you think, Jayjay?”

He huffs. “Alright, fine. But I mean… are you resisting? Could you try keeping some back? Forgive me for asking, but I’m just a humble bard and I don’t know how all this Chaos stuff works.”

 _“Of course_ I’m resisting. What did you think, that I was just letting Fringilla stroll up to me and take my magic without putting up a fight?”

“Alright!” Jaskier shifts, and Yenn thinks he’s holding his hands up in a sign of surrender. “How much are you trying to hold back from her? How much do you want to keep for yourself?”

“Everything!” Yenn shouts, her hands balling into fists as she struggles to contain her anger. She reins her voice in to a whisper. “Everything.”

Jaskier’s shoulder shakes against hers, and she thinks for a moment that she’s scared him. She realises after a moment that he’s laughing, convulsed by mirth as he chuckles at her pain.

“It’s not _funny,”_ she hisses.

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry, Yez, it’s not you,” he says as he struggles to gain control of himself once more. “It’s just that… Melitele preserve us, but you two are a godsdamned _pair_ aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just…” Jaskier has to break off to laugh some more, before getting a grip on himself. “It’s just… Geralt’s always declaring to anyone who’ll listen that he wants nothing. And then there’s you, you want _everything._ Destiny has a sense of humour, I’ll give her that.”

“It wasn’t Destiny,” She spits. “It was an idiot with a Djinn making a wish.”

“And who’s to say it wasn’t Destiny who put the amphora in the hands of our stupid Witcher, hmm?” Jaskier counters. 

Yennefer doesn’t respond except to reach out and flick him on the ear.

“Ow! Fine. Let's do something else. Ooh, I know, I feel a song coming on. Pass me my lute, will you?”

“I don’t know where you put it down, Jaskier,” Yennefer tells him. She knows it’s useless to argue against the song once the bard has made up his mind, and besides. Music might be nice, and he’s definitely good enough to be able to play without being able to see his fingers.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that. It’s just over there.” She feels Jaskier move as he gestures, entirely unhelpfully given the darkness.

“How am I supposed to locate a lute in this pitch black, Jaskier?” She asks patiently.

“Pitch black? Yennefer, it’s gloomy, but there’s enough light to get by…”

Yennefer is suddenly cold despite Jaskier’s warmth beside her. She remembers the rune Fringilla had traced, the last thing she’d seen before the cell door had closed and the darkness had descended.

 _“That’s for your efforts on the Hill,”_ Fringilla had said. Like she was getting a more satisfying revenge than just locking Yennefer up.

Slowly, Yennefer brings shaking hands up to her face. She moved her fingers in front of her eyes, but can’t make out anything but blackness. But Jaskier said there was light enough to make things out… he’d seen the mould on the bread, she realises with dread. And he’d navigated the cell with confident ease from the start while she’d had to grope her way around initially.

“I’m going to kill her,” Yennefer promises.

“Yennefer…” Jaskier speaks carefully, like he’s scared of what her reaction might be. Like he’s scared of what her _answer_ might be. “Have you lost your sight?”

Yennefer feels her eyes moving in their sockets, but she cannot pick out Jaskier’s form. She can’t pick out anything.

“Fuck,” they curse in unison again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer has been magically rendered Severely Sight Impaired/blind by Fringilla in an act of revenge/to make her easier to control. fortunately Jaskier will be there to be surprisingly helpful. i'm going to be as sensitive with this issue as i can, of course.
> 
> [Book spoilers and possibly spoilers for Series 2] in the books it's revealed that Fringilla blinded Yennefer after seeing her take out some of her Nilfgaardian mage friends but it's not really addressed further than that even though they have to work together. and i thought that was a really interesting dynamic that i wanted to explore


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cahir decides to interrogate Yennefer and Jaskier himself. Jaskier sways towards Nilfgaard's side and Yennefer's spirit gets broken

The camp’s defences have been shored up and strengthened, the siege weapons repaired and improved on. The sick and wounded have been tended to, and their supplies of food and weapons restocked. The fuel stores are full to bursting. No retreating army in the history of the Continent has ever been so well provisioned, Fringilla is willing to bet.

She’s has achieved all of this, and yet there is still a small reserve of Chaos left where she stored Yennefer’s magic – Yenna is so powerful it’s truly astounding. It’s a shame, really, that someone with such a lack of vision should have been gifted with such strength.

But then perhaps it was meant to be so, Fringila reflects. Maybe it was designed this way by the Great Sun so that Yenna could fall into Fringilla’s hands and help her achieve the greatness that she and Nilfgaard were destined for. It would make sense. Fringilla would never have been posted to Nilfgaard if it weren’t for Yenna, after all. It’s almost funny.

Maybe after a while, even Yennefer will come to appreciate the necessity of shared sacrifice. It was a nice thought, that she might help the cause without being forced to it. But Fringilla’s willing to use force, if necessary. It’s worth it, for the future she’s creating.

What to do with the spare magic, though? Fringilla wonders as she sits at her desk. She could save it, of course, but that seems unnecessary when she knows there will be another bountiful harvest tomorrow. She smiles. No, there’s no need to keep it in reserve. She’ll use it.

Nilfgaard is fair, and just. She’s lucky to live under the reign of the Great Sun and the Emperor, Fringilla knows. She also knows that Nilfgaard’s ale leaves much to be desired. She uses what remains of Yenna’s Chaos to conjure herself a nice Est Est that she remembers from her teenage summers spent at Beauclair with her cousin. It’s rich and aromatic, caressing her tongue as she sips. Delightful.

The moment is ruined when Cahir barges into her tent, thrusting the flap to the side without so much as a warning. Fringilla calmly puts down the mug that conceals her contraband wine, careful not to spill any.

“Can I help you, Cahir?” 

He must have come straight from a mission, his clothes muddy and dishevelled from the ride. He pulls off his winged helmet and discards it on her desk, disordering the papers she’s laid there, so he can run his hands through his sweaty hair. His boots have tracked mud onto the rug that covers the floor of her tent.

“You can, Fringilla. You can take me to the prisoners so I can wring the truth out of them myself. I’m fed up of running in circles. It’s time.”

“Of course, Cahir. But first, tell me how your mission went…”

He dismisses her with a wave of the hand. “No, Fringilla. I know you’ve been distracting me with these so-called sightings of the Princess Cirilla, having me ride after spectres and rumours to keep me away from camp. But it won’t work.”

 _It’s worked for the last week and a half,_ is what Fringilla doesn’t say.

“Of course, Cahir,” is what she does say.

He’s wound up, whether from the adrenaline of his failed princess hunt or the fear of what the Emperor will do to him when he hears that he had the Lion Cub of Cintra in his grasp and let her get away. He is geared up to fight her on this, she can see, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Her agreement pulls him up short.

“Oh. Good! We’ll go to their tent now.” He turns to leave.

“Wait,” Fringilla calls him back. “I did some interrogating myself yesterday. They need some time to recover, they won’t be in any fit state to answer any questions until tomorrow. And you’re exhausted. You should go to your quarters and eat, rest. They’re not going anywhere.”

She sees Cahir wrestle with himself. He’s no stranger to interrogation tactics, so he’s well aware that it will take the prisoner a while to recover after a… questioning. He is also an aristocrat, used to luxury. The idea of a bath, food and good night’s sleep is tempting him sorely, she can tell.

“No. Now.” His determination wins out. He turns on his heel and strides out into the smoke and bustle of the camp towards his own tent. Fringilla sighs, and looks down at her wine. It’s best to let it breathe for a while anyway, she reassures herself, before following Cahir’s impatient figure towards the tent that houses Yenna and the bard.

The soldiers hurrying about their business part anxiously before them. Despite Fringilla’s magical camp improvements, the morale among the troops is low. They’d expected to take Sodden without much effort and continue sweeping North, growing rich on the spoils of war. But a handful of mages had put a stop to that, causing devastating casualties as they worked. Fringilla can feel the despondency rising from the troops like a miasma. 

She’d have to turn that disappointment into something useful before it got out of hand, she tells herself. Perhaps the desire for revenge. That’s always useful in an army.

The guards at the tent see them coming, stand to attention for their commanding officer and his personal mage before they’re even within thirty feet of the prisoner’s quarters. Cahir halts, but doesn’t even nod in their direction. Fringilla acknowledges them with a small smile, wondering why Cahir has paused at the door. She realises: he’s listening.

“Fine, I’ll leave you alone! Far be it for a mere mortal like me to try and _help_ the great Yennefer of Vengerberg!” The bard’s voice is raised, irritated.

“I don’t need your help,” Yennefer shouts back.

“Well fine then! I’ll just let you fend for yourself, we’ll see how well that goes!”

“I can manage just fine by myself. I need no one.” Yennefer sounds sure, but when doesn’t she? Fringilla isn’t fooled by her bravado.

“Gods, you sound just like _him!”_ The bard snaps.

“Don’t you _dare_ compare me to him!” 

Cahir smirks and pushes into the cell, Fringilla close behind him.

“Trouble in paradise?” Fringilla asks in amusement. Neither captive deigns to answers her, both of them sitting with arms folded and glaring at opposite walls.

Yenna is still huddled in the same spot Fringilla had left her in, though she’s managed to sit up again. She really is a sorry sight – _not that Yennefer can know that,_ Fringilla thinks with just a trace of smugness. She’s still in the clothes she’d worn at Sodden, but there’s not an inch of the dress that’s not covered in mud, blood or worse. Her hair is lying lank and matted around her face instead of in her usual curls. Her violet eyes gaze out sightlessly.

“Missed us already?” She barks from the floor. She’s trying to sound intimidating, Fringilla supposes, though the effect is rather spoiled by the faintness of her voice.

The bard is sits as far from Yennefer as he can, cross-legged with the lute in his lap. He too is a state, though he’s fared better than Yennefer. The bright colours of his doublet and trousers are stained in several places by unknowable fluids, and his face streaked with dirt.

“Ah, good, an audience!” He announces. “I’m Julian Alfred Pankratz, at your service. Hopefully you’ll be more helpful than Yennefer here, she’s being unbearably crotchety and cantankerous. What lyrics do you prefer…”

“Silence!” Cahir orders. The bard’s mouth snaps shut. “You’re going to tell us the location of Princess Cirilla if you value your lives. If you value your _painless_ lives, you’ll do it quickly.”

“Painless?” Julian laughs harshly and points at Yenna. “You’ve already locked me in a room with _her,_ what more can you do to me?”

Cahir steps forwards and pulls out a dagger, holds it casually in front of Julian’s face. “What more can we do? Oh, so many things. Shall we find out together?”

“I’ve already told you, Fringilla, that Cirilla’s dead. She died in the massacre of Cintra. How could a child survive something like that?” Yennefer says from her corner, sounding exceptionally bored even though there is sharp steel not three inches from her cellmate’s face.

“It’s true,” Julian chimes in, strumming a minor chord on his lute. “It’s a shame. She was a little terror, always running riot and causing mayhem in the palace every time I played there. I liked her.”

“It’s _not_ true,” Cahir snarls. “I took her safely out of Cintra myself that night. She’s alive.”

Yennefer snorts. “So you had her in your grasp and let her escape you? A ten-year-old? My my, the Emperer will not be impressed _at all…”_

Cahir takes a step forwards as if to strike her. Fringilla holds him back – she can’t have him murder her new source of Chaos, after all.

“We will get her back,” Fringilla says with her hand still on Cahir’s arm to still him. “The Great Sun will guide us.”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard of this Great Sun,” Julian says keenly. “It sounds intriguing. Tell me, how does it work? It’s done wonders for Nilfgaard, the North could learn a thing or two from it to be honest. What are the teachings I should know about?”

“Jaskier,” Yennefer’s voice is venom-sweet. “I know that you think your nosiness makes you interesting, but there are some things that are not worth being curious about.”

Fringilla draws herself up. “The Great Sun is the giver of warmth and light, the guide in times of darkness…”

“Be quiet,” Cahir snaps at her. “If he’s so interested he can join the nightly service, but right now _I’m_ asking the questions.”

Julian sit up straighter, the picture of enthusiasm. “Ooh, can I?”

“Cahir, I don’t think that’s wise…” Fringilla begins.

“Oh, please let me go! I’ll do anything to get away from my cellmate to be honest with you, but I’d love to find out more about your religion. For research, but also it just seems fascinating.”

Cahir waves Fringilla away, impatient. “He can go. But now, I ask the questions. Where is Cirilla of Cintra?”

“I don’t know,” the prisoners chorus together.

“You don’t know? Bard, not two weeks ago you were heard singing a song describing the Princess meeting up with the Witcher known as Geralt of Rivia and riding off with him, were you not?”

“You did _what!?”_ Yennefer hisses at him. “You’re such a fucking idiot. How are you not dead yet?” She’s trying to glare in his direction, but she’s looking just a little too far to the left, giving her lack of sight away.

Julian makes a dismissive gesture. “It was poetic licence. I haven’t seen the Witcher in over a year. I just needed a new ballad, and the thought of their link – a Princess and a mutant, bound by Destiny, was too good to resist. But I made it all up.”

“I don’t believe you. You must have met with them, heard the story straight from the horse’s mouth. Now tell me: where would they have gone after you saw them?”

The dagger in Cahir’s hand makes its way to Julian’s throat, the tip resting against his voicebox.

“Uh, uh, uh, fuck. Just… let me think. Uh… oh, that’s right! Nivellen! He’d go to Nivellen.”

“Jaskier! _Shut up!”_ Yennefer orders with murder in her voice. Everyone ignores her.

Fringilla steps up to Cahir’s shoulder. “Who’s Nivellen?”

“He’s… fuck, that’s sharp… he lives in the woods near Murivel in Redania, deep in the forest and far away from prying eyes. He was cursed, and it turned out his girlfriend was a Bruxa, and Geralt helped him with both problems. Nivellen owes him a favour. His manor house is enchanted, capable of defending itself against intruders. That’s where Geralt would go to call in his favour and lie low for a while.”

Cahir presses the dagger slightly closer to the bard’s throat, denting the skin where the stubble is just starting to grow into a beard. 

“If you’re lying, bard, you will be very sorry.”

“Not lying! Very definitely not lying while there’s a dagger pressed to my throat… and, and if he’s not there then I’m sure that if you give me some time, I can think of other places he might be. Definitely. I travelled with him for fifteen years, there must be something buried in the old memory banks. I’ll help you find him just _please don’t press that dagger any harder…”_

Yennefer makes a disgusted sound from her corner.

Cahir steps back from the bard to look at Fringilla. “It’s worth checking out. Prepare me a portal, I’ll take a team to this manor house and take the Witcher by surprise. You’ll create a portal to take us back once we’ve been there for three hours. If we don’t come back, you’ll come after us. Understood?”

“Yes, Cahir.” _I’m not a child, Cahir._

“Make your preparations. I’ll gather the men and meet you by my tent in fifteen minutes.”

“Can I still go to the meeting?” Julian asks faintly, rubbing at the red mark Cahir’s dagger has left at his neck.

“Fine,” Cahir says over his shoulder without slowing down. He steps outside and gives orders to the guards that the male captive is to be allowed to join the daily Great Sun Service under heavy guard, and is gone.

“Well,” Fringilla says. “It looks like I’m going to have to open a portal powerful enough to transport twenty men and their horses across the Continent. You’ll help, Yenna.”

Yennefer closes her eyes and leans her head back against the grey stone of the wall, apparently indifferent. “Have you blown through my Chaos so quickly, Fringilla? You should have had enough to create a dozen portals like that. Can’t you do anything yourself these days?”

“I can,” Fringilla admits, advancing. “But why would I when I don’t have to?”

Fringilla kneels on the ground, careful to avoid the soup Yenna seems to have spilled now that she can’t see to feed herself. She reaches out and takes a manacle in each hand.

Just like all the previous times, Fringilla has to push against Yennefer’s resistance to access the reservoir of Chaos. The other mage’s ability to fight her is impressive, especially with the Dimeritium hampering her. But Yenna is fighting a losing battle – the shackles are designed too well. Resisting the inevitable only causes pain.

As Fringilla thinks this, it’s as if Yennefer realises it too. Where Fringilla has been pushing against a wall of Yenna’s will to keep her out, the barrier suddenly disappears. Yennefer’s spirit has broken, leaving Fringilla unfettered access to the vast sea of Chaos that Yenna keeps inside her.

Fringilla gathers the raw Chaos to her with greedy sweeps, delighting in the ease of it. The sheer amount of power is heady, almost disorientating. It’s delicious.

Yennefer’s head drops and she slumps alarmingly. Fringilla watches for a moment, and sees Yenna’s chest rise and fall with relief. She’s still breathing.

“That’s probably enough for now,” Fringilla announces, keeping the fear from her voice. She can’t afford to lose a weapon like Yennefer, especially not to her own greed. She pulls a fresh set of manacles from her pocket, ready to replace the spent ones around Yenna’s wrists. The other mage doesn’t even flinch, too weak to so much as raise her head as Fringilla unclips the used manacles and replaces them with the new ones.

When she’s done, Fringilla turns. Julian is staring around the cell with wide eyes, as if desperate to look anywhere but at Fringilla and the siphoning process.

“The service of the Great Sun is in an hour. Be ready,” she tells him.

He salutes her cheerfully. “I will be!”

Fringilla sweeps out of the room, buoyed by the fresh crop of Chaos inside her. She’ll portal Cahir and his team to Redania with barely any effort. And then there’s a cup of Est Est in her tent, just waiting for her attention.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's betrayal, and planning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i went back and removed some things from earlier chapters and put them here. if you've already read the previous chapters, you don't have to read the changed ones for this to make sense. just the first few paragraphs of this chapter might seem familiar!

“Did it work?” Jaskier breathes eagerly, his words warm and damp against her skin. He’d barely managed to wait until Fringilla’s footsteps died away before crawling over to her and grasping her arm.

“It worked, and I’ve got a plan,” Yennefer replies fiercely. She hears a rustle, feels his body heat withdraw as he pulls away from her.

Well fuck that. Yennefer moves away further, putting as much distance between herself and the bard as possible. Her back comes up against the damp cell wall, the cold stone pressing into her bare skin making her shiver. She grits her teeth, refusing to lean away from the chill and towards Jaskier.

Without her permission, Yennefer’s mind slips back to the night before.

_“If you’re trying to keep everything back from Fringilla,” Jaskier had said in the tones of someone testing the ground before them carefully with their toe before risking putting their whole weight on it, “maybe she’s expecting that? Taking it into account?”_

_“Of course she is,” Yennefer had snapped. “What’s your point?”_

_“My point is, what if you just try and keep a tiny bit of your Chaos, rather than all of it?”_

_Yennefer had considered this, exhausted fingers playing with the hem of her dress. “That’s a stupid idea,” she said eventually._

_“Yeah, you’re probably right… but what if you’re not?”_

_And fuck, he had her there._

So she’d tried it. As usual, she’d resisted with all her might when Fringilla’s mind had invaded her Chaos reserves, fought to hold on to what belonged to her even as she could feel her defences being battered down at Fringilla’s whim. But then – and she burned at how much it had almost felt like _relief,_ even as she felt fury that Fringilla dared to even _look_ at what was _hers_ – she had let her defences fall back. They’d retreated so far that it must have seemed like surrender to Fringilla, who had eagerly absorbed everything Yennefer had abandoned on the other side of her paltry defences.

But, tucked away behind her breastbone, Yennefer had managed to hide and protect a tiny piece of Chaos, small and unimposing enough that Fringilla would never guess that it was there.

Then, when the other mage had unclipped the spent Dimeritium manacles, that Chaos had sprung into action.

_How can I find a way for us to escape when I can’t even see the cell we’re kept in?” From anyone else, that would have been a whine. But Yennefer of Vengerberg does not whine. She especially does not whine about being unable to escape from confinement and enchantments that she’d see through in an instant if she had her sight._

_“I can describe it to you?” Jaskier offered._

_Yenn had shaken her head. “Not enough. I have to examine the wards that Fringilla placed here myself. But I can’t do that without my fucking_ eyes!” __

_“Ah, I can see how that’s a problem,” Jaskier had agreed._

_Yennefer’s head had snapped around to Jaskier automatically, though she couldn’t see him._ “You can see,” _she said more to herself than him._

_“Ah, fuck. I’m sorry, Yennefer, I didn’t think. I wasn’t trying to rub it in.”_

_She waved an impatient hand, dismissing his words. “No, I mean you can_ see. _Fringilla has to change the manacles after she’s used them to steal my Chaos. If I manage to keep some back, I could use it to look through your eyes when she takes the first set of manacles off and before she puts the second set on.”_

_“Um…” she can’t see his face or read his mind to gauge his emotions. Fortunately, Jaskier’s voice is ridiculously easy to read. He’d been nervous._

_“It’s the only way I’m going to be able to get us out of here,” she tells him. She should have said_ please, _perhaps. She should have said it, if only to prove she can without choking. Her nose told her their evening food has arrived: horse soup again, by the smell of it._

_She didn't say it._

_“I… fine.” Resignation, but agreement. Good. Normally consent would be unnecessary when entering a human’s mind. In this state, however, she wouldn’t have the strength to push past any mental resistance, even from someone as untrained in Chaos as Jaskier. They’d work together, and she’d find a way out of this for them both._

And she had. In the gap between Fringilla unclipping the used manacles and applying the new ones, Yennefer had used her precious piece of hoarded Chaos to look through Jaskier’s eyes and take in their surroundings.

The thing is… spells are usually at least partially metaphorical, and magic always demands an ironic payment for its help. In her first weeks at Aretuza, Yennefer had pictured Chaos as a powerful being – flighty, and devastating, an unknowable Goddess who played favourites and had a twisted sense of humour. After decades of practicing magic, she’s not entirely sure that her childish suppositions were incorrect.

Yennefer knew that a spell to look through someone’s eyes does not just allow you to see what that person sees – _how_ the person sees it also comes into play. Looking at a banquet through a glutton’s eyes is a more visceral experience than looking at it through the eyes of someone who is indifferent to food. Looking at riches through the eyes of someone who has more than enough coin is different to looking at it from the point of view of someone who does not have enough money to feed their family. The person’s experience and mentality come into play inescapably, colouring what they see with their own experience.

She hadn’t expected Jaskier to have many thoughts on what he would see in the cell – it’s just a bare room, for Melitele’s sake – and had therefore been unprepared to find his thoughts distracting.

To be fair to him, Jaskier had been surprisingly helpful. He had been looking dutifully around the room almost before he’d felt Yennefer’s presence pushing its way into his mind, trying to take in as much of the cell as possible. Via Jaskier, she saw with the stone walls, the green mould that flourished in the corner, all coloured with his distaste and longing to be away from it. She saw the ceiling with its damp crumbling plaster and the place where moisture condensed and dripped onto the floor, and felt his longing for the finer things.

She saw the door swing closed behind Cahir and watched it dissolve into nothing almost instantly. She felt Jaskier’s despair at seeing that leaving was impossible when the exit’s disappearance left all four walls of the cell bereft of windows, doors, or even a crack in the mortar. 

With her head still bowed and body slumped after Fringilla’s onslaught, she reached out with her mind and stared harder with Jaskier’s eyes at the imposing stretch of brick and mortar that Cahir had used as an exit just moments ago. The image darkened to nothing as Fringilla clicked the new set of Dimeritium cuffs around her wrists.

She had a plan.

But in Jaskier’s mission to look around the cell, his eyes had rested for an instant on Yennefer herself. It was impossible not to, in such a small space. Through Jaskier Yennefer had seen her own body where it was curled in on itself against the wall, weak and injured and pathetic. But even here, the transformation she’d gone through in Aretuza did not fail her: her limbs were graceful, her hair managed to fall artfully. Half-dead and filthy, a sorceress managed to look merely dishevelled when others would look ghastly.

She’d expected Jaskier’s pity, or worry, on seeing her. She’d been braced for the sting of it, ready to snark at him until he realised that it wasn’t necessary and went back to treating her with his usual easy banter.

From anyone else, she would have expected fear or hostility. That was the usual, boring way that men usually reacted to a sorceress they couldn’t control. She’d have been disappointed in Jaskier if that’s what he felt towards her, but she’d have understood. 

What she hadn’t expected him to feel when he looked at her was wariness. Mistrust. Distaste.

 _Your worst fear makes such sense,_ Tissaia had said. _Even if you were a beauty, still no one would love you.”_

Yennefer closed her eyes against the words, though it made no discernible difference.

“Yez?” Jaskier’s voice is thin, tentative.

And, gods, she was stupid to have thought he was her friend. But why wouldn’t she have assumed so? Jaskier was used to hanging around people much more powerful than himself. His demeanour hadn’t seemed like the type to bruise when it knocked up against her superior competence even though he was a man. He’d amused her, and she’d enjoyed the challenge of finding wordplay clever enough to win a smile from him on those long evenings when Geralt had been off on a hunt, or too taciturn to speak. 

She’d let him give her a name, and given him one in return. _Yezza. Jayjay._ They’d started ironically, only used tacked on to the end of an insult or slight – but then they’d become sincere, slipping into their joint lexicon without her knowledge or consent and becoming the closest thing to a term of endearment that she could bear to use without dunking her words in a vat of sarcasm first.

She’d thought they were friends. She’d trusted him.

They’d never said as much to each other, she supposed. But then those were not the things they talked about. She’d just assumed that they shared an understanding. Assumed wrong, apparently.

Yennefer hates being wrong.

“Yezza?” Jaskier asks again, persistent. Always so persistent. It was one of the things she’d admired about him, before.

“What, _Jayjay?”_ She spits. She doesn’t know how he’s looking at her, and suddenly can’t stand the vulnerability of it, though she hadn’t minded before. What if he’s looking at her with open disdain? Mocking her? How would she know?

“Are you alright? You didn’t faint this time, which is good, but you did tell me you have a plan and then sat there for the last forty minutes glaring at the floor like it’s mortally offended you. Wait, is that your plan? To glare a hole at the floor? Can you do that? I mean, I’m sure you can under normal circumstances, but can you do it with the Dimeritium on you?”

Yennefer doesn’t deign to respond to that. She hears him approach slowly, carefully. She doesn’t back away; she refuses to recoil from him. She will not add _weakness_ to the list of things he thinks of when he looks at her.

There’s a brush of callused fingers on her shoulder, light and gentle enough that it feels both like no intrusion at all, and like the worst thing he could have done. She wants to lean into his touch, to experience the warmth he’s shared with her over the last two days. She wants to scramble away, surrender herself to the frigid stone of the cell and never feel warm again.

“I have a plan,” she says again. Her voice had grown stronger again for having someone to talk to recently. The last hour of silence has stolen that health away, making it hoarse with misuse as it had been before Jaskier had been thrown in here with her. “We’re going to get out.”

“Yes, so you said. Do you want to tell me what it is? Or is it supposed to be a surprise?” She can hear the smile in his voice. She refuses to give him one back.

“We’re going to get out,” she tells him, “by walking out of the door.”

“Riiiiight. Good, yeah, good. Except there is no door?”

Yennefer doesn’t answer, instead letting her head tilt back and lean against the wall. Gods, she’s tired.

“Yenn?” Jaskier takes her hand. When he finds no resistance, he stretches it out touch the place Yennefer had minutely inspected with his eyes an hour ago. Her fingers feel the rough face of the mortar that holds the stones together, but she knows that that too is a lie. “I appreciate the idea, and the positive attitude. But please tell me you can feel the wall here. How are we going to walk out of a _complete lack of door?”_

Yennefer snatches her hand back. Jaskier lets out a sound that could be disappointment as she does, but Yenn knows better than to trust sounds like that now. He’s a story teller, after all. A better one than she'd given him credit for, apparently. Good enough to fool Yennefer of Vengerberg.

“It’s an illusory complete lack of door. I should have caught on before. But a room without an entrance that someone still wants to get in to without a portal has two possibilities: either there is no door, and Fringilla would have to conjure one every time she wanted to come in. That would be tricky, what with the other enchantments she’s put on this tent to make it a stone cell instead of tarpaulin, but I wouldn’t put it past her. Or, there _is_ a door, but it’s disguised when not in use. That’s easier, and it’s what she’s done.”

Jaskier clasps his hands together, the _clap_ echoing around the cell. “Yennefer, you’re a godsdamned genius! And thank you, Fringilla, for cutting corners! Can you find the door past the illusion?”

“No.” Yennefer rolls her head and her neck cracks with an audible pop. It’s true, she can’t. Not yet, anyway.

“Oh. Well. Now we know it’s there, I’m sure we’ll find a way to solve it!”

All of a sudden, Yennefer realises that she cannot keep having this conversation and keep what’s left of her composure.

“Play something, Jaskier,” She asks. It’s the closest she’s ever come to begging. Luckily, Jaskier is thrilled to oblige.

He’s just starting his third song, his clever fingers coaxing joyful sounds from the lutestrings, when Yennefer lies down. She turns to face the wall, feeling the chill radiate off the stone onto her face. Despite the cold, her eyes burn. No tears fall from them; she will not allow it.

She tunes out both the sound of Jaskier’s singing and the memory of how he felt when he looked at her that burns bright and perfect in her mind. She forces herself to think clearly and logically, the way Tissaia always drilled into her.

Assets: The ability to keep some Chaos back from Fringilla. The few seconds of time between the used cuffs being removed and new manacles being clipped onto her wrists. Herself, always herself. Only herself.

It’s not enough, she knows. She’s not enough, by herself, to escape. Not enough to _deserve_ to escape.

The sound of lute music filters back into her mind. Jaskier has switched from some wordplay-rich jig to something more subdued, almost meditative. She rolls towards him just slightly, and she’s rewarded with a nudge from his knee where it rests by her shoulder. He’s settled himself next to her again.

“I thought this might be better music for planning to,” he tells her quietly. “Less distracting. But don’t let me disturb you.”

She nods and turns back to the wall.

He doesn’t trust her, she knows, which means she can’t trust him. The risk of betrayal or double-cross is too large to be discounted; she knows he’s capable of it, after all. She’d been relying on his loyalty to counteract that, to allow her to expose her vulnerable underbelly to him without fear of a dagger sliding into it.

Well. More fool her.

No matter how she plays out the scenarios she comes up with, though, she can’t escape without him. Distasteful as it is to admit, and despite his obvious disdain for her, she needs him.

She doesn’t have to trust him to use him, though.

She sighs, and starts to divine a plan.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cahir has a new and surprisingly effective way of getting information out of his prisoners. 
> 
> Yennefer and Jaskier put their plan into action.

Jaskier stumbles as he’s pushed through the door by the Nilfgaardian soldiers who’d been guarding him, road-worn boots scraping against the floor as he struggles to keep his footing.

“Thanks for the meeting!” He says to the rapidly disappearing door. “I feel utterly rejuvenated, completely reborn! Same time tomorrow?”

He grabs for the doorknob as it fades, disappointed but not surprised as his fingers pass through it. It was never going to be that easy, after all. At least he managed to gather some useful information on his trip to see the Great Sun service.

Yennefer huffs from her spot on the floor. “I _was_ enjoying the blessed silence.” He knows she can’t see him, but nevertheless her eyes are looking right at him. 

“Yeah, I don’t really go in for that.” He tells her cheerfully. He sits himself down next to her, as has become his habit. She doesn’t move away, but she does stiffen slightly at the proximity. He wonders if he should move away, but if they don’t huddle for warmth then he honestly thinks they may succumb to the cold. Proximity it is.

“Perimeter guard shifts change every half an hour. It’s a good thing those Great Sun services are _three bastard hours long_ so I had the chance to double and triple check. And quadruple check. And… what comes after quadruple?” He nudges her with his shoulder.

“Get on with it, Jaskier.” Is the only answer she deigns to give.

Jaskier swallows. “The general’s tent is left out of here, keep going for fifty-seven paces, then turn ninety degrees to your right. Another twenty-four paces and you’re there. Just in case we want to take him with us, as a hostage or something.” And because he wants her to be able to get away, if for some reason he’s incapacitated and can’t be her eyes. At least one of them should get out alive.

“Or maybe we should bring Cahir along for his delightful company. Do you think he’d be any good at backing vocals for me?” He asks in a poor attempt at levity. He sees her mouth twitch, though she brings it back under control in an instant. As he studies her features, he realises her lip is still split; smiling would reopen the wound. It would hurt.

“Fringilla’s tent is on the outskirts of the camp, due West from here.” He continues to try and smooth over the fact that he’s caused her more pain. “It’s almost like she wanted to be as far from Cahir as possible – can’t imagine why. Turn right out of here and keep on walking and we’ll run right into her.”

“Hmm.” Yennefer plays with the obsidian star around her neck as she thinks. Jaskier had described it as her heart in one of his ballads, though he feels a bit bad about that now. He’s glad the Nilfgaardians didn’t take it from her, but he’s seized by a wish to see her without it. To be trusted with that sight.

“The mood in the camp’s not great, either,” he says, unable to take his eyes off her fingers with their blood-encrusted nails as they twist around her necklace. “You learn how to read the room, as a bard. Either that or get very good at dodging beer bottles and other audience-propelled missiles. The soldiers are tired and demoralised. I’d bet that if you offered them an excuse to go home to Nilfgaard right now, they’d jump at the chance.”

“Thanks, Jaskier,” she says finally. “You remember the plan?”

“Yep! I am, as ever, your humble servant and glad, if slightly terrified, to be so!”

Her mouth twists at that, fully opening the cut on her lower lip. She closes her eyes against the pain, or against a thought, he’s not sure. Gods, he wishes he knew. He wishes he dared to reach out and wipe the blood from her lip with gentle fingers, to soothe the wound closed so it can heal. It’s a ridiculous notion, of course. Even without her powers, she’d eviscerate him on the spot. Jaskier is in no mood to have his heart metaphorically crushed by someone who could just as easily crush it literally. Not again.

She lies down facing away from him. “I’m going to rest now.”

Oh. He was planning on telling her what else he’d seen, to try and distract her from the mess they’d found themselves in. He was going to describe the sunset, one of those obscenely beautiful ones made up of purples and oranges and clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon in delicate patterns. He was going to tell her what the Priest of the Great Sun had looked like, the way he seemed unsteady on his feet as if he’d partaken too much of the alter wine. He’d managed to pick a wildflower that had somehow survived the hooves and boots of the infantry as they milled about the camp, and was going to present it to her. He’d thought she’d like to smell its delicate perfume, feel its soft petals against her skin.

It’s probably crushed in his pocket now, anyway. Stupid.

He reaches out to her shoulder, close enough to feel the heat of her, a phantom-touch. He can’t bring himself to close the distance between them. He holds his breath for a moment, willing himself to rest his palm against the sharp jut of her shoulder blade.

His hand falls to his side. _Coward._

“G’night, Yez,” he says quietly. He waits for a moment, but she doesn’t answer. He lies down beside her without another word.

Jaskier is jerked half-awake by what sounds like a door banging open. He’s shaken the rest of the way to wakefulness by Yennefer, gripping his arm unfeasibly tight for one so slight and rocking him violently.

“Wzfgl?” He says, not fully coherent. He blinks. “Yenn? What is it?”

“I’ll tell you _what,”_ Cahir snarls from immediately above them. Jaskier almost jerks back, but he doesn’t want to move away from Yennefer. “I took my men and went to the place where you _assured_ me the Witcher would be. But what did I find? A rotting, abandoned house that was completely void of both Witchers and Princesses!”

Jaskier rubs his eyes. It’s too early for this.

“Ah. Right, yes, I can see how that might be a bit… um… frustrating for you. I’m sorry, I was sure he’d be there! Just give me a moment and I’m sure I can think of where he’d go.”

“Oh you’re going to tell me,” Cahir agrees. “I’ll get the _truth_ this time.”

Two more men enter the cell. They are both frankly terrifying, almost as broad as Geralt and certainly as tall. Jaskier remembers that Yennefer can’t see what’s happening, and how much more terrifying this scene must be when played out in darkness.

“Yes! Yes, of course I’ll tell you… oh hello, two more visitors, aren’t we lucky?” Jaskier narrates desperately in an attempt to keep Yennefer in the loop. “Hi there, fellas. Didn’t I see you at the service last night? Good one, wasn’t it? I particularly liked that bit about _do unto others as you would…_ oh! Well, yes, I suppose it was time I got up…”

The last sentence came out high-pitched with surprise as each of the newcomers took hold of one of his arms and used them to haul him upright. One of the men smells like he hasn’t seen the inside of a bath house in _months._ Jaskier wrinkles his nose. At least Yennefer should be able to smell them, though that may be more of a curse than a blessing.

“Gosh, you’re strong. And tall, too! You must be, what, six foot six at least? And, oh dear, carrying a rather elaborate rope and pulley system… now, I’m not against using things like this in general – to each their own, you know, no judgement here – but I’d really rather not… mmph!”

Jaskier’s voice is cut off by a rather foul-tasting rag being forced into his mouth by one of the men. The other goon is busy dragging Jaskier’s hands behind his back and tying them at the wrists, then looping the rope through a hook in the ceiling and pulling it tight enough to make Jaskier’s wrists rise towards the roof uncomfortably – but not painfully. Not yet.

If they pull harder, of course, Jaskier will be lifted off the floor by the wrists that are bound behind him, and then… Jaskier tries very hard not to think about what would happen next.

Cahir steps into Yennefer’s space. Jaskier feels rage swell within him, though there’s nothing he can do about it while trussed like he is. The shame of his impotence burns in his cheeks.

“Fringilla tells me you can’t see,” Cahir’s tone is conversational. “Let me describe to you what you’re missing. The bard’s valuable hands have been tied behind his back. The rope is looped through a hook in the ceiling. If my guard pulls on that rope, poor Julian will be lifted off his feet by the hands he uses to make his living. Sounds painful, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Yennefer agrees without emotion.

“Let’s see for ourselves,” Cahir says pleasantly. He signals to the guard, and Jaskier’s world collapses into pain.

The ropes burn and strip away the skin of his wrists while his elbows lock and threaten to bend entirely the wrong way as his toes leave the support of the floor. His shoulders creak and protest as they twist. Jaskier feels them start to stretch and tear from their sockets. He can’t help but thrash a little, but the shifting of his weight somehow makes the pain even worse, so his body goes limp in self-defence.

Perhaps he should be silent and stoic under the punishment, like Geralt would be. Fortunately, Jaskier has never been terribly concerned with what he _should_ do. So he screams, as best he can through his gag. Professional training and decades of practice have given him exceptional lung capacity; it’s a long time before he has to draw breath to scream again.

His throat feels raw by the time they let him down, though he can only have spent a few tens of heartbeats suspended by his arms. He slumps to the floor, unable to support himself. The searing pain in his limbs only just has time to recede from unbearable to merely agonizing before he’s being lifted again.

 _They aren’t even asking him questions,_ he realises the third time he’s dropped to the floor. So why are they doing this?

He manages to slow his frantic panting and subdue the rushing in his ears in time to hear Cahir talking to Yenn again.

“Look at your friend, Yennefer. He’s suffering. You can stop it.”

“He’s not my friend,” Yennefer counters calmly.

Jaskier is surprised that the sting of her words can register against the agony the rest of him is wracked with, but there it is.

He notices groggily that there’s something going on by his feet. He concentrates and looks down, and almost vomits at what he sees. It’s lucky that he doesn’t, given the fact that he’s gagged.

“Sorry for the delay in the proceedings, Yennefer,” Cahir is saying. “We’re just making an addition to the bard’s situation. My guard is tying a bucket of lime to his ankles with a short rope. It’s heavy, you understand. If they lift him enough that it starts to lift the bucket as well as his bodyweight, I fear it will have an extremely bad effect on his ability to play and write. He might never regain the feeling in his hands.”

The guard finishes tying his sturdy knot. The other soldier pulls on the rope, hauling Jaskier upwards once more. He just has long enough before the pain hits to be glad that it’s Yennefer he’s trapped with. Unlike his previous travel companion who would crumble at the prospect of someone else getting hurt, she won’t break. She can stand to witness this.

He is pulled higher, his already-abused joints screaming at him as they are twisted to their limits. He feels the rope attaching his ankles to the bucket grow taut, and cannot hold back a whimper at what’s to come.

He’ll miss playing the lute.

The pressure on his ankles becomes a wrenching, and Jaskier starts to scream as he feels bone grate against bone in his left shoulder…

“Stop!” Yennefer orders. “I’ll tell you.”

Jaskier is lowered just enough that his feet can take his weight, though he cannot sink all the way to the floor.

“Go on.” Cahir inspects his nails. He seems almost bored. Or rather, he’s trying unconvincingly to seem bored.

Jaskier makes a sound through the rag muffling his voice that he hopes is understandable as: _don’t!_

Yennefer ignores him.

“Geralt will have gone to Brokilon. He’s friendly with Eithné, the Queen the forest.”

“The Witcher is allied with the Eerie Wives?”

“The dryads, yes. Everyone knows Brokilon is safe from the interference of men, the dryads defend it too fiercely. He’ll know he’s safe there.”

Jaskier arranges his features into horrified disappointment around the gag. It must work; Cahir seems convinced.

“Thank you, Lady Yennefer. Let’s go!” The last two words are directed to the guards. They let go of the rope, allowing Jaskier to drop to the floor, and exit behind Cahir in a swirl of cloaks and foul smells.

Jaskier coughs, spits out the gag.

“Urgh. That was the least fun I’ve _ever_ had while tied up,” he announces to the world in general. “Yennefer? Could you lend me a hand?”

Yennefer reaches towards him cautiously. Her hand finds his elbow, travels down until it finds the knots binding his hands. She starts working at undoing them none too gently, jolting his tortured body as she does. He doesn’t mean to whine, but one escapes his lips nevertheless. Yennefer doesn’t acknowledge it, but her movements do become gentler as if in apology.

“Thank you,” he whispers. His voice is raw, the words scratching at his larynx. But he has to say them.

The bindings finally come loose under Yennefer’s attention, allowing the ropes to slither away from his wrists. Jaskier gasps as the blood flow returns excruciatingly to his hands. Yennefer moves on to the cord around his ankles. Jaskier spots the pail of lime standing innocently where the guards left it.

“Good thing I didn’t kick the bucket, eh?” Jaskier says somewhat nonsensically. He starts giggling uncontrollably, though the action tortures his throat and hurts his shoulders as they shake.

“You’re hysterical,” Yennefer tells him coolly. “Probably going into shock. There, it’s untied. Sit with your head between your legs.”

Jaskier obeys, still laughing weakly. “Oh come on, _kick the bucket._ I was attached to a pail full of lime. That’s _funny.”_

Before she can respond, the door opens again. Jaskier flinches, assuming it’s the guards returning, and then sees that it’s Fringilla. He’s not sure which is worse. Remembering the plan, he lets his head drop, playing up how helpless he is after the attentions of Cahir and the guards. Not much acting is necessary, if he’s honest.

“I’ve just made Cahir a portal. I need more reserves for the rest of my duties this morning.” Fringilla announces. “Give me your wrists, Yennefer.”

Yennefer, glaring at Fringilla as if trying to strike her down with willpower alone, presents her arms. Fringilla grabs them and pulls them towards her impatiently.

Jaskier cannot bear to watch Yennefer and the struggle she’s about to go through. Instead, he watches Fringilla, the concentration that causes her forehead to wrinkle gradually dispersing as she steals more and more of Yennefer’s magic. The smile that grows as Yennefer reduces, slumping like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

“Good,” Fringilla says eventually. “That will be enough for now.”

Fringilla’s barely unclipped the second manacle before Jaskier is throwing himself at her, but Yennefer gets there first. She launches herself forwards with nails bared like claws and bares Fringilla to the ground. Jaskier adjusts his trajectory, ignoring the complaints from muscles and tendons that have been stretched beyond endurance, and adds his weight to Yennefer’s to hold Fringilla to the ground. One of his lute-strong hands clamps down on the mage’s mouth so she can’t make a sound, the other grabs the rope that had tied him until minutes ago.

Yennefer has already searched Fringilla’s pockets, and found the manacles that had been meant for her. She snaps them onto Fringilla’s arms instead as Jaskier binds the mage securely with the ropes. As he works, Yennefer divests herself of the shackles around her ankles and the collar that have adorned her since she’s been here, placing them on Fringilla instead.

“Now to take back what’s mine,” Yenn hisses to her old school friend. She reaches out and touches her fingers to Fringilla’s temples, and smiles. Jaskier feels a charge in the room, like the moment before hot weather breaks into a thunderstorm. The smell of ozone crowds the cell. She’s reclaiming her magic, he assumes.

Yennefer opens her eyes to glare into Fringilla’s. “Do you remember the rock and flower trial on our first day in Aretuza, Fringilla?” She demands. “Remember what happened to your hand?”

Fringilla whimpers.

“Yennefer…” Jaskier says from where he’s kneeling beside the bound sorceress.

“Oh, relax, I’m not going to drain her.” Yennefer snaps. “Not yet, anyway. She may still be useful.” Fringilla falls limp to the floor, apparently in a faint.

Yennefer stands up and traces a portal in the air before her. She has to let go of Fringilla to do so, and the mage takes the opportunity to twist and knee Jaskier in the shoulder with all her strength.

The blow would be devastating even under normal circumstances, but Jaskier’s shoulders have recently been all but dislocated. He keels over, gasping as the unspeakable pain travels through him in waves, his vision constricting to a tunnel and then a pinpoint before slowly expanding again.

When he comes back to himself, Yennefer has picked up Fringilla and thrown her through the portal, and is preparing to step through after her.

She can’t… she’s not going to leave him here? She wouldn’t abandon him, surely?

“Yezza?” He manages to croak. There is nothing accusing in his voice. There is only fear. “Yez? Please?”

She looks down at him, prone on the floor of the cell they have shared for days. Her face is expressionless. 

She turns to the portal, her slight frame backlit by the magic’s glow. She steps forward.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yenn and Jaskier have escaped and taken Fringilla hostage, so it should be smooth sailing for them now right?
> 
> ...right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> didn't mean to leave it so long since that cliffhanger in the last chapter but work absolutely fried me this week and the resultant brain death meant i was completely unable to put pen to paper. or... finger to keyboard.
> 
> still not 100% happy with this chapter tbh but it's going up anyway! XD hope it's enjoyable

There’s a commotion outside; running footsteps, shouts, the clatter of armour in motion. More guards are coming.

“Bollocks!” Jaskier manages to roll to his feet, travelling faster than Yenn has ever seen any human move. It must be the adrenaline. He grabs his lute by its strap, slinging it around his neck before cradling his left shoulder with his right arm where it sticks out at an odd angle. He crowds next to Yennefer before she has a chance to take another step, so close their elbows knock.

The door bursts open just before they reach the portal. Yennefer sees the guards charge as if in slow motion; they’re close enough that she can see the whites of their eyes, the places where their armour has grown worn and succumbed to rust. She’s almost within range of their swords, with no weapon of her own and her Chaos hasn’t recovered enough to allow her to fight them with magic. One of the soldiers shouts; Yennefer’s gut clenches in disgust as she feels his spit land on her cheek. The foremost guard thrusts his sword forwards, aiming for the soft flesh of Jaskier’s stomach.

She reaches out reflexively and grabs Jaskier by the lute strap, tugging him more quickly through the portal. He chokes slightly as the leather strap around his neck tightens but his body is pliant as he allows her to drag him forwards. She pulls harder, having no intention of arriving at their destination with only half of Jaskier in tow, and finally succeeds in getting all of him through the portal. She lets it close with a grunt of relief. 

Cold pine-scented air hits her as she arrives, a relief after the stuffy, stale aroma of the cell she’s inhabited for the last several weeks. She lands on Fringilla, who’s lying tied where she fell when she was tossed her unceremoniously through the portal. Jaskier lands on top of Yennefer.

Something lands on top of _him_ with a thunk. He looks down and, seeing what it is, backs away quickly.

“Nope, no, _nope,_ no thank you.”

She looks down to see what he’s so terrified of; it’s the tip of a Nilfgaardian sword, neatly shorn from when the portal closed around it and left half of the sword with them while half remained at the Nilfgaardian camp. It’s engraved with the symbol of the Great Sun, though most of it has been cut off.

She bends to pick it up. A flash of white undershirt through Jaskier’s jade-green doublet catches her eye as her fingers close around the metal. She holds the truncated blade to the suspiciously neat tear in Jaskier’s jacket – the shape matches perfectly. Her fingers slip beneath his shirt quickly, exploring his skin in search of damage, dreading the feel of the hot pulsing spill of blood, the ragged edges of a stab wound. The tension in her shoulders slips free when she finds him whole and unharmed, though her hands linger for a moment. She can feel the contact of her fingers on his abdomen low in her stomach, both unnerving and reassuring at the same time.

“I was nearly stabbed!” He backs away from the sword – from her? – shuddering dramatically. “That sword nearly stabbed me! And, worse, it _ruined my doublet!”_

The wariness, of course. She must have made him uncomfortable.

“Calm down, Jaskier. The skin’s not even broken. They didn’t hit their mark. And besides, this can’t be the first time this has happened to you...”

“No, well, being on the road a lot does mean you’re bound to encounter bandits and…”

“…because you’re annoying,” Yennefer continues smoothly.

Fringilla snorts where she still lies tied on the ground.

Jaskier draws himself up to respond, only to wince and hold his left shoulder more tightly.

“Your shoulder’s dislocated,” Yennefer points out helpfully.

“Oh is it? _Is it really!?”_ Jaskier spits, still hugging his arm. “I hadn’t noticed, Yennefer, thank you for pointing that out!”

“Come here.”

He draws back involuntarily for a moment, then sighs in resignation. He approaches, mouth twisting in the knowledge of what’s coming next, and allows her to put her hands on his arm.

She looks behind him to his right in alarm. “Jaskier, what’s that?!”

Jaskier’s head snaps around. Yennefer _pushes._

“What wha… ARGH!”

Yennefer grins smugly and pats him on the shoulder that rests in its socket once more. “Better?”

He tests the joint gingerly and seems to find the range of motion satisfactory. “Much, thanks.” He gives her a smile that only seems slightly forced, his eyes watering from the pain. He indicates Fringilla. “What are we going to do with her?”

“You’re going to regret your actions today,” Fringilla tells him. Then she looks at Yennefer, accusatory, as if she feels betrayed. “And you didn’t use the escape plan you’d talked about.”

She’s managed to sit up and is staring with wide eyes at the forest Yennefer brought them to. She takes in the pine trees that grow thickly, dusted with a light frost and sheltering the sparse scrubby plants that have taken root on the forest floor. Yennefer feels vindicated in her choice of location when no recognition sparks in Fringilla’s face.

Fringilla is from the South originally, from what Yennefer can recall from the getting-to-know-you phase in Aretuza, with family in Toussaint. Nilfgaard is even further South than that. So Yennefer brought them to Poviss, as far from Nilfgaard and Fringilla’s comfort range as possible, reasoning that if she doesn’t know where they are, Fringilla can’t use the geography to her advantage. Fringilla is no match for Yennefer, of course, but Yenn is not going to take anything for granted.

Yennefer’s vision is not completely restored. It’s still foggy, with reduced peripheral vision. Nevertheless, she can see well enough to glare at Fringilla.

Yennefer leans back to lean against a tree, hoping it looks nonchalant rather than like she needs the support. “You think we’d announce our actual plans in a cell that we know you’re listening in on? Give us some credit, Fringilla. Besides, your pet Nilfgaardian burst in this morning and we had to move our schedule up.”

“I should have known,” Fringilla says bitterly. “You can’t see the bigger picture, the world I’m trying to create, can you Yenna? Why did I expect anything different from you?”

Yennefer’s hand twitches. Fringilla’s head jerks to the side as the magical blow hits home, though it wasn’t as strong as it should be, Yenn notices with displeasure. She really does need to recover.

Fringilla keeps speaking, undeterred. “You pretended to miss the Initiation and Enchantment Ceremonies and then swooped in and took Aedirn from me. And then you pretended to resign yourself to your place in Destiny’s plan, to helping me improve things for every person one the Continent, and then you do something like this.”

“A true Sorceress doesn’t let anyone take what they want away from them. Besides, I didn’t _take_ Aedirn from you. I saved you from it.” Yennefer doesn’t have enough of a reserve of Chaos yet, but she burns with the need to unleash some on Fringilla, to take some revenge for what’s been done to her and her fellow mages. 

“That’s true, actually,” Fringilla concedes. “In Nilfgaard, I learned my true purpose. One day, you’ll see. And you’ll wish you helped me.”

“Learned your true purpose? Lost what little sense you had, you mean.” 

Yenn and Fringilla glare at each other for a long time, the few feet between them crackling with undischarged Chaos.

“…Right. Well, I’m going to go… and… find some firewood? Yes. Find some firewood. And, and set up camp. I’m used to roughing it, unlike you powerful Sorceresses, so I’ll get everything sorted while you two… chat. Lots to catch up on, I’m sure.” Jaskier backs away slowly, as if scared of getting caught in the magical crossfire. Or that they’ll turn and attack him together.

“No,” Yennefer tells him, hauling Fringilla to her feet and giving her a push. “Move.”

“No?”

“We have to keep going. Portals are traceable.”

“Traceable?” Jaskier goes white at the thought of being tracked down by their captors. He rushes to catch up with them, stumbling in his haste.

“Yes. We need to put distance between this site and ourselves.”

“Right!” 

Jaskier actually proves useful. Having watched Geralt trace humans, monsters and everything in between, he’s extremely well-versed in how a fleeing party can be tracked down… and therefore how to avoid detection. He leads them confidently to a river and into its twisting path, explaining that the water will mask their scent. He shows them how to double back on themselves, how to disguise their footsteps and leave false trails to confuse anyone who’s decided to pursue them. 

After each tip he gives, he grins at Yennefer. It’s a conspiratorial look, like they are working together. Like he trusts her. It’s a lie, and each one gives her a little thrill while simultaneously setting her teeth on edge.

Tiring of his false smiles and her ridiculous responses to them, Yennefer strides onwards briefly, driving Fringilla in front of her. It works well, until she catches her foot on some unseen obstacle on the forest floor. She stumbles, only just catching herself before she crashes to the ground.

“Yennefer?” Jaskier rushes to her side. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she snaps. His shoulders sag at her tone, and before she knows it she’s softening her voice. “My vision is still recovering from Fringilla’s spell. I can see, but not perfectly. I didn’t notice that branch.”

“Oh! Yenn, why didn’t you say?” Jaskier holds out his hand. “Let me help.”

Yennefer rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to hold your hand, Jaskier. I’m not a child.”

“Alright. How about this?” He offers her his arm with a chivalrous air, like a nobleman asking a lady to dance at a ball rather than a bloodstained, dirt-covered ex-prisoner offering aid to another in a forest. She loops her arm through his.

They take a few steps, Jaskier slightly ahead of her and guiding her around obstacles and dangers. She has to admit, it’s easier. They continue like that for a while, Jaskier chattering about the different times he’s had to hide from pursuers and his varying degrees of success. With everything that’s happened in the last few days, the exhaustion they are both weighing each other down as much as they are helping each other, though neither of them breaks the contact.

Eventually, Yennefer decides they’ve put enough distance between their landing site and themselves. “We’ll stop for the night,” she announces.

She uses some of the ropes around Fringilla to tie the other mage to a sturdy tree. Jaskier clears the ground and builds a fire, humming something she doesn’t recognise. She snaps that it had better not be another song about her hard, black heart, and he laughs and tells her jokingly that he has better things to write about than a sorceress who got herself captured by Nilfgaard. She has a response on the tip of her tongue, but bites it back. She doesn’t know why he’s pretending to like her, bantering and laughing with her, when he secretly finds her abhorrent. She can only guess that she’d taken for laughing _with_ her is actually him laughing _at_ her. Well. She won’t give him the satisfaction.

She snaps at him to be quiet if he wants to get fed tonight, which works surprisingly well. She closes her eyes, lets her mind reach out and explore their surroundings. There’s not much food around, and she finds herself wishing for Triss. She’d be able to rustle up something delicious from these surroundings, Yennefer knows, gifted as she is with botany. 

Eventually, Yennefer manages to sense a couple of squirrels and a small rabbit warren. She reaches into their little bodies and snaps their necks with magic before collecting them for roasting. It’s a quick and painless death for them, at least, though worse than they deserve. But then, she muses, the world would be a very different place if everyone got their dues.

She drops their cooling bodies in Jaskier’s lap for him to prepare and cook, and retreats to lean against a tree to think. Jaskier tells her off for _sitting in the corner and brooding,_ which she does not deign to respond to.

Fringilla’s breathing has evened into snores. Yennefer stares at the leafy canopy above her. The branches are indistinct, darker scribbles against the dark sky. She knows there are stars out, but she cannot distinguish them in the firmament with her reduced vision. It’ll come with time, she knows, but the waiting is grating on her. Seeing not enough is almost worse than seeing nothing at all, the frustration of being _almost there but not quite_ catching and scratching at her mind like a kernel stuck between her teeth. She’s never been good at waiting.

Jaskier hasn’t said a word in hours. After they ate he’d withdrawn into himself, and this is the longest they’ve been together without her hearing from him. It’s ridiculous, but after hours wishing he’d shut up she finds herself craving his easy chatter.

His reticence is reasonable, she supposes. He must be furious with her for almost leaving him in the Nilfgaardian cell. She’d be furious in his position. But if she were furious, she’d have said something by now. She doesn’t understand why he hasn’t. Well, Yennefer has no intention of spending the next few days under an unspoken thundercloud. She picks a pinecone from the ground beside her and throws it at him. It lands squarely between his eyebrows.

“You know, there are more subtle ways to get my attention,” Jaskier says without opening his eyes.

“Aren’t you angry?” Yennefer demands.

Jaskier turns his head so he can look at her. “About what?”

She glares at him, trying to work out what game he’s playing. He gazes back at her placidly. “The portal,” she tells him eventually.

He nods.

“You would have left me.” His tone is neutral, neither accusatory nor upset, making it difficult for her to draw her defences to her.

She turns away, glares unseeing at the forest. She would have, she knows. Offering help is something she’s weeded out of herself with steely determination, salting the earth where the impulse had grown so it could never return.

Being helpful had been natural to her once. She’d picked up a dropped flower to return it to someone who had never spoken a kind word to her in their life. She’d seen her best friend offer her support again and again, only to be turned into an eel when she was still found wanting. Kind people were taken advantage of. Kind people were vessels who got broken after they were drained.

She had thought of extending her hand to Jaskier as he lay on the floor of that miserable cell while the wind from the portal buffeted her hair. She’d considered it. But she couldn’t offer it, and still be herself.

“And what if I had?” She asks instead of voicing her thoughts. “You’d have been fine. You always manage to weasel your way out of things, or have Geralt burst in and save you.”

“Yes, well. That last one’s not very likely anymore,” He tells her gently. “But it’s not who you are, Yez. I know that. Yennefer of Vengerberg doesn’t help you. Yennefer of Vengerberg expects you to help yourself. She assumes that you’re competent enough to cope. It’s quite flattering, when you look at it that way.”

“And do you? Look at it that way?”

There’s silence as Jaskier considers. Nighttime forest noises are loud around them; rustling leaves as something forages in the bushes, the beat of wings overhead.

“I learned long ago that it’s better to love someone for what they are than try to change them.” He answers eventually. “Life’s much less disappointing, that way. And I… I know what it’s like to have people try and change you to fit in with what they want you to be. That’s not something I’d impose on anyone.”

Yennefer looks at him and sees the red-orange glow of the fire’s embers glint off his teeth, his smile glowing red in the dark like a warning. “You did pull me through, once I’d helped myself first. Hey! You can say you’ve pulled Jaskier, the greatest Bard and master of the Seven Liberal Arts!”

“Yes, I can say so. Me and half of the Continent. Don’t I feel special?” She wants to tell him that grabbing and tugging someone after you is not the same as offering a hand they might refuse, but she’s too tired to explain.

“I suspect you don’t need me to make you feel special, Yennefer of Vengerberg. You manage that all by yourself, as well you should.”

Yennefer is about to nod when, too late, she feels a presence in the trees around them, too complex to be an animal.

“Jaskier…” she whispers. 

Every tree in the clearing seems to move as the bandit gang acts as one, thoroughly surrounding them. Yennefer moves towards Jaskier, but stops when she sees the glint of a metal knife pressed against his throat. Another blade is aimed at Fringilla, pressing into her chest above her heart.

“Yennef…argh!” Jaskier’s voice cuts off hastily as the knife presses more firmly into his neck.

Fuck.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bandits ambush Yennefer and Jaskier's makeshift camp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> possible spoiler alert for the books from Blood of Elves onwards and also maybe the show?
> 
> not specific characters or events but more a group/ideology and political allegiance.

Yennefer can’t see much of the person currently threatening to open Jaskier’s neck, what with them using the bard as a human shield, but she can just make out several squirrel tails pinned to the worn leather of their clothes. 

She curses; it’s the Scoia’tael, the guerrilla warriors that have risen up all over the Continent recently, fighting for non-human rights and recognition. Their speciality is guerrilla warfare, laying traps and ambushing humans; no wonder she hadn’t heard them approach. Now that she’s paying attention she can sense one more in the forest behind her, creeping forwards with the accomplished stealth of a long-term forest resident. From the feel of their mind, it’s a dwarf. They’re sticking to the trees for now, aiming a crossbow at her exposed back, which makes sense. The Squirrels she’s met before often seem more at home in the forest than the animals from which they took their name. There’s another in the trees behind Jaskier, though she can’t afford to sound them out, her attention already drawn in too many directions as it is.

From what she’s heard, Squirrels are more likely to kill a captured human than let them go. Jaskier’s wide, panicked eyes suggest that he knows this too. The elf uses the hand that’s not holding a dagger to Jaskier’s throat to give the bard a swift punch to the kidneys. Yennefer watches Jaskier absorb the blow, groaning and coughing around the pain that wracks him. The elf giggles, the movement and a flare from the almost-extinguished fire revealing a face that’s pretty even by elven standards, framed by auburn hair growing long around his ears. More laughter joins him as another elf, tall and broad and bristling with weapons, steps from the shadows and leans against their comrade.

That makes four enemies, presumably at full strength, while Jaskier is still weakened from his time in the Nilfgaardian cell and her own eyesight is still infuriatingly impeded. She does not have enough Chaos to take them all on by herself. Shit.

“Scoia’tael!” Fringilla says carefully, her eyes on the sword tip pressed against her chest. Yennefer really wishes she’d gagged her. “I am a mage of Nilfgaard. I am your ally. I too serve the Emperor, _Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd._ These two criminals have captured me. Release me, and I will help you bring them to justice and see you greatly rewarded by the White Flame.”

Oh. Yennefer had suspected that Nilfgaard was behind the Squirrels, giving them the courage they needed to make ever more daring shows of power, but it’s nice to have confirmation.

The elf whose dagger is making an unenviable acquaintance with Jaskier’s throat growls. “You look like just another human to me,” he spits. Jaskier stiffens as the dagger presses closer to his skin. “Let’s kill them all and carry on East.”

“No, she’s wearing the uniform of Nilfgaard’s mages,” the woman – a half-elf, by the looks of her – who’s standing over Fringilla says thoughtfully. “And she’s a high-ranking one by the looks of it. She’s right. We’re all allied to the Emperor.” Despite what she says, however, she does not remove her sword from Fringilla’s chest.

“Good, so let me go, and I’ll help you dispatch these…” Fringilla begins.

The half-elf squats down, the better to look in Fringilla’s eyes, brushing her blonde plait aside as she does. Her blade never lifts from Fringilla’s chest.

“I had a sister,” she says in the same ponderous tone. “Well, a half-sister. Iona. She was younger than me, and full-blood human. But we were close, even so.”

Yennefer takes the opportunity to look at Jaskier in confusion at this apparent impromptu storytime. He gives her the tiniest shrug that manages to convey the sentiment of: _I have no idea what’s going on but I’m not going to argue with a stay of execution…_ Yennefer has to agree. The tangent gives her the opportunity she needs to slip her hand between the folds of her skirts, holding her breath. No one seems to notice.

“Iona, though she was human, had a gift for Chaos. She joined Nilfgaard, when she was old enough, because she’d heard they are on the side of non-humans. She’d heard they supported the Scoia’tael, even though for all their big talk in private they won’t admit to it outright. They also won’t accept people of elven blood into their magical academies. But Iona could join, because she wasn’t _tainted_ with non-human blood as I was. So she went, hoping to help the non-human cause. She did it out of love for me.” There are tears in the half-elf’s eyes now, though her voice doesn’t waver. “Not a year after she joined the Nilfgaardian mages, I heard that she’d died, though no one would tell me why. So I started asking about how trainee mages are trained in Nilfgaard. Do you know what I heard?”

Fringilla’s look of relief at being discovered by the Squirrels curdles. Yennefer knows why; there’s only one way someone could have conjured the balls of fire she’d used to bombard the fortress atop Sodden Hill, and it certainly wasn’t Fringilla who’d sacrificed herself.

“I heard that trainee mages are forced into servitude. I was told that they’re used for their Chaos by the sorcerers that are higher up, that the students are drained until they’re dry and left to fall where they stand, the dust from their bones scattered to the wind. They don’t even receive a _burial.”_

“Everything our mages do is voluntary…” Fringilla begins. She stops when the blade point digs harder into her chest.

“Voluntary after you brainwash them with your Great Sun ideology. You’re nothing but a cult. You didn’t deserve Iola.”

“This isn’t the mission, Nia,” the auburn-haired elf tells her from his place behind Jaskier. The other elf behind him nods in agreement. “We’re supposed to converge on Ard Carraigh in readiness. Not stop on the way to settle family disputes. Family disputes about dead _humans,_ no less.”

“Shut up, Dewi. This is about family.” Nia hisses, her eyes not leaving Fringilla’s

 _“We’re_ your family, Nia. The Scoia’tael. The Emperor won’t forgive us murdering his personal mage. Or is one dead human worth betraying all of your comrades for?” This comes from the dark-haired elf who was the last to enter the clearing, his deep voice ringing through the dark forest.

“The Emperor doesn’t need to know, Bryn.” Nia’s voice is steel.

Yennefer can feel the crossbow-wielding dwarf behind her becoming impatient; the dark-haired elf named Bryn lays his hand on his sword hilt. Dewi is getting twitchy behind Jaskier, shifting his weight as he listens to his grieving comrade. His distraction could be useful, but twitchy people make rash decisions, and Yennefer cannot afford that while his blade is a twitch away from ending Jaskier’s life.

She flings out her hand and throws the shorn-off blade that came through the portal and was then subsequently hidden in her skirt. The sword flies Jaskier’s direction as Yennefer jerks herself sideways to dodge the first crossbow bolt from the dwarf in the shadows. She propels the blade with her Chaos, just hard enough for it to bury itself into Dewi’s skull. 

Yennefer doesn’t look to check she’s hit her mark. Jaskier has no knife at his throat and a weapon; she trusts him with the rest. She turns instead to the fire, which has unhelpfully burned down to its embers. She pulls the remaining heat into herself, feeling the warmth flow beneath her skin as it drains from the charcoal. Yennefer whips up a wind to blow the now-cold ashes into the eyes of Nia where she stands above Fringilla, then spins on her heel to face the dwarf who’s charging her from the trees. Fire magic is temperamental, it hates to be contained – so she lets the heat burst from her fingers and towards her assailant. It’s not as hot as she would have liked, but it’s more than enough to burn the dwarf so badly that he drops instantly to the ground.

Yennefer turns back to deal with Nia, but finds Jaskier already stood over her having already dispatched Bryn. Yenn glances over and sees the dark-haired elf on his back, eyes glassy and staring at nothing and with the cut-off Nilfgaardian blade buried in his chest.

Nia must have dropped her sword when the ash hit her face; Jaskier has kicked it away, holding her at the point of Dewi’s knife that must still be warm from where it pressed against the flesh of his neck.

“Why are you going to Ard Carraigh?” Jaskier demands.

Nia spits ash. “Go die in a hole, human. I’m not telling you anything.”

Yennefer meets Jaskier’s gaze only to see her own fear mirrored back at her.

“It’s alright. You don’t need to tell us something we already know.” Yennefer manages to sound bored despite the panic that’s trying to claw itself up from inside her stomach.

There’s only one reason the Emperor of Nilfgaard would send his guerrilla commando units to Ard Carraigh, a town that acts as the last bastion of civilisation before the Gwenllech river carves a path to a certain Witcher fortress. Nilfgaard must be hoping to intercept Geralt and Princess Cirilla on their way to Kaer Morhen, using the only troops they have this far north.

Nia gazes up at Yennefer, still blinking ash out of her watering eyes but somehow managing to still look determined. Yennefer holds her fellow half-elf’s eye contact.

“You… you’re like me. A half-elf.”

Yennefer raises an eyebrow. “Quarter elf.”

Nia waves a hand as if to say _it’s all the same._ “Let me kill the mage,” she pleads.

Using magic to break the neck of a humanoid is more difficult than using it to snap the necks of the rodents Yennefer had caught for their dinner. Difficult, but not impossible. A crack echoes through the forest

“I’m sorry,” Yennefer says as Nia’s body slumps to the forest floor, a look of betrayal on her face. “But if anyone’s going to kill Fringilla, it’s going to be me.”

Jaskier staggers back, dropping the dagger. “Bloody hell!”

“Pick that up. We need to go. Now.” Yennefer forces her voice to be harsh. She does not look at the way Nia’s back has hunched where she fell, giving her a distinctly crooked look that is familiar enough to make her nauseous.

“I… what? Oh, right. Yes. We need to make it to Ard Carraigh before… whoever else might be on their way. But, just…” he gestures at the bodies around them. “They won’t be needing their water skins any more. Or their food provisions. It’s gory, but it makes sense to avail ourselves of what they’ve left behind on this mortal plane. Sorceresses may be able to survive off the air itself, but I can’t. Trust me, you don’t want to be dealing with a hangry bard on this trek to Kaedwen.”

As he gestures, Yennefer catches sight of his hands. They are bloody, but the blood isn’t that of his assailants; it’s fresh, and still flowing. She catches his hands in hers, examining the deep gashes on his fingers and palms.

“Ah, yes. I couldn’t get poor Dewi’s dagger at the start, and Bryn was about to charge you while you were fighting that dwarf, so I had to use that half of a Nilfgaardian sword. Only it doesn’t have a handle… hilt… so I had to hold it…”

“By the blade. You really are an idiot, Jaskier.” Yennefer concentrates, and manages to close the wounds most of the way before the use of so much Chaos in such a short amount of time makes her light-headed. It’s not completely healed, but his hands aren’t bleeding any more and Jaskier sighs with relief. She reaches up and rips one of the sleeves from his undershirt, expertly tearing it into strips and bandaging his hands.

“I… thanks, Yenn. We should started gathering the supplies, then?”

Yennefer nods, but makes no attempt to move. She just stares at Fringilla, who cannot budge due to her bindings. Jaskier looks between them a few times, a look of calculation on his face, before he backs away. 

“Right. Yes. Right. Good. I’ll just go and… collect some things. I’ll fill their water skins in the stream nearby. See you later…”

He snatches the four waterskins from the belts of the fallen Squirrels and hastily leaves the clearing. They can hear the sounds of his retreating footsteps, then nothing but the forest. The wind rustles through the trees, bringing the smell of pine and mulch with it. From the direction of the stream, there’s a splash and the faint sound of Jaskier cursing. A cloud passes over the moon, darkening the scene for a moment before bathing it in grey light once more. Yennefer never lets her eyes drop from where they’re boring into Fringilla’s face.

“Still think it’s a good idea to drain other mages for spells you’re too weak to perform yourself?” Yennefer demands finally.

Fringilla sits up straighter, as far as the bindings will allow.

“I’m doing what needs to be done. The ends justify the means.”

“Yes, well. The _ends_ of your _means_ were you very nearly getting gutted by an angry Squirrel. Doesn’t that make you want to rethink your viewpoint?”

For the first time since their reunion after the Battle of Sodden, Fringilla’s eerie calm cracks.

“Yes, well. We can’t all be powerful as you, Archmage de Vries’ pet. Some of us had to make do with what we could get.”

Yennefer scoffs. “Make do? When have you ever had to _make do_ with Uncle Artorius around? It must be nice having family that high up in the Brotherhood. Must be nice to have family that cares about you at all.”

Yennefer rolls her eyes, and as they sweep the campsite she spots a bottle among the late Dewi’s things. She snatches it up, thumbs the lid off and sniffs. Plum vodka. Perfect. She takes a swig and feels the heat of it snake down to her stomach, soothing the roiling jealousy that lives there.

Fringilla stares at her for a moment, before the fight seems to slip out of her. “Well. It didn’t do me much good in the long run.”

The honesty in her voice pulls Yennefer up short. Before she thinks better of it, she’s saying “Having Tissaia’s attention wasn’t much fun either. She likes to push you, just to see how far she can make you go. She doesn’t care if she pushes so hard and far that where you go is over a cliff.” She takes another long pull from the demijohn. “I refused to go with her, at first. Fat lot of good it did me.”

Fringilla nods. “I didn’t even freeze that cat. My uncle did that to convince my parents that I’d have to go to Aretuza, then told Archmage de Vries so she’d come and take me.”

Yennefer studies the ground before her and snorts out a laugh. “You didn’t even have a conduit moment?”

“Oh no, I did. I caused a freeze in the middle of May to get out of lessons. But no one was ever able to trace it back to me, I made sure of that. I didn’t want to go to Aretuza.” Fringilla sniffs. “Uncle Artorius had different ideas, though.”

A freeze in Toussaint in May. From an untrained child, that’s impressive, Yennefer has to admit. She holds out the demijohn to Fringilla companionably, before realising the other mage can’t grasp it with her bound hands. She laughs, not entirely cruelly, then tilts the neck of the bottle to Fringilla’s lips.

“Are you sorry you became a sorceress?” Fringilla asks.

Yennefer knows she shouldn’t answer. She shouldn’t give away anything to Fringilla that might be used against her. But she so rarely meets anyone who _understands,_ who’s shared the same fucked up experiences. She hasn’t even seen Triss for years, not since banishing herself from the Brotherhood to live off the grid after she realised that the rules of Aretuza and Ban Ard were just more horseshit meant to keep her in line. She hasn’t been lonely, of course. Yennefer of Vengerberg doesn’t get lonely. But perhaps she wouldn’t have minded a little more companionship than a Witcher who wished himself on her without her permission with treacherous magic from a sadistic spirit. 

Maybe Fringilla has been lonely too, so far South that no other members of the Brotherhood would venture to visit, trapped with no one but people like Cahir for company. 

Besides, opening up to Fringilla might trick the other mage into slipping up and revealing something herself. 

“I don’t regret the power,” Yennefer answers after a while. “But I think I always had that anyway.”

Fringilla nods, as if she understands. Hells, maybe she does.

Jaskier steps back into the clearing, arms laden with bags and waterskins, somehow managing to seem apologetic by his posture alone.

“Er. Sorry to interrupt this lovely moment, but… I’m done packing. And dawn’s just breaking, if we wait longer we’ll be wasting daylight…”

Yennefer allows her defensive internal walls to rise again. It’s a relief, really; keeping them down requires mental energy that she doesn’t have to spare.

She’s on her feet in an instant, corking the demijohn and hanging it from her belt. She wrenches Fringilla up and onto her feet, then pushes her forward hard enough that she stumbles.

“You heard the bard. Get a move on. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. And you’d better hope we don’t come across any more of your Emperor’s allies. I won’t save you next time.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer and Jaskier set off on their mission to save Geralt and Ciri from Nilfgaard's agents with Fringilla in tow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i struggled a little bit trying to get the balance between dialogue, inner monologue and description in this one. hopefully it flows and isn't too jarring!

Fringilla has never been so glad that she never spent much time in the North, nor so sorry to be there right now. All that keeps her going as they trudge through apparently unending forest and backroads is fantasies of returning South to where the climate is warm and the alcohol drinkable, preferably after murdering the bard and putting Yenna back in her place.

At least she’s not alone in her misery. When they had brought Yenna to the Nilfgaard camp after the Battle of Sodden Hill, Yennefer had been tied to Fringilla’s saddle by her wrists. She’d been forced to stumble along behind the Nilfgaardian soldiers with her wounds untreated and suffer the clods of earth being kicked up into her face by the horses. Fringilla is just as much a prisoner but her captors are on foot too and, bar the occasional shove from Yennefer if she thinks their progress is too slow, they seem disinclined to indulge in the casual cruelty that soldiers seem to enjoy subjecting their hostages to.

They’re headed East, towards Ard Carraigh. Yenna and Julian made no attempts to hide this from her, so they must believe she is too powerless to use the knowledge in some way. Unless they’re lying, of course. But they started their march towards the barest hint of dawn in the sky for the past four days, and Fringilla hasn’t detected the distinctive light-headedness that comes with a Confounding spell.

The sun is behind them now, casting its last few warming beams on their backs as it sinks hastily towards the horizon. Fringilla wishes it would stay for its warmth, even as she urges it down so they can stop for the night and she can rest her agonised feet. Yenna and Julian barely tolerate stopping for ten minutes at a time to eat and refill the waterskins, and Fringilla thinks she might have fainted hours ago were it not for her determination that Yenna will not see her broken. Unfortunately Julian and Yennefer seem determined to keep going tonight even as the last of the light fades.

Fringilla knows Yennefer’s Chaos must be close to fully recovered by the way she manages to keep up a punishingly quick pace through the trees with apparently no effort, presumably drawing on water sources and laylines as they pass them to replenish her energy reserves. Her dress has mostly repaired itself, her wounds knitted closed and bruises faded away. 

The bard seems used to trekking for endless hours and sets a quick pace, navigating the uneven forest floor and low tree branches with ease. Fringilla is unused to walking any great distance, especially after little rest and in such unsuitable clothing. With every mile she’s forced to walk through the mud and brambles, the fantasies of exactly how she’ll punish Yennefer grow more and more intricate. She’s in the middle of one daydream scenario involving several herbs that don’t grow outside the caves below the Temple of Melitele, Aracha venom, the loss of the bard’s voice and Yenna begging on her knees when the conversation going on between her gaolers catches her ear.

“Why did you…” Julian begins.

“Because I had to,” Yennefer answers absently before he’s halfway through his sentence.

Julian shudders. “That’s so creepy! I hate it when you do that.”

“Do what?” Yenna’s voice drips innocence.

“When you read what I’m about to say in my mind.” They chorus together, Yenna grinning with mischief as she parrots the words she’s heard in Julian’s thoughts back to him. Fringilla rolls her eyes; reading someone’s mind so obviously is a cheap parlour trick, something most mages would class as an activity that’s far beneath them. Yenna doesn’t seem to care, too busy laughing at Julian’s exaggerated gestures of offence.

“C’mon, Yenn. I’m a bard, my thoughts on the world are my bread and butter. How am I supposed to make any money from them when you’re helping yourself for free? Besides, it’s not like you even _need_ to read my mind. I always say what I’m thinking.” Julian pouts.

“True. And it’s not like anything you think is worth listening in on anyway,” Yenna tells him. She laughs again when Julian splutters, arms flailing like her words have struck him a true blow.

 _“Yennefer!_ That’s downright indecorous! I mean are you _trying_ to hurt my feelings…”

“Not trying, Jaskier. Succeeding.”

Julian huffs and goes to storm away in mock anger, but Yennefer grabs him by the lute strap and pulls him back to his place beside her. He goes willingly, leaning into her grip to keep his balance. Fringilla sees the mask of irritation he’s put on slip, watches him look up at Yenna with eyes that are crinkled and soft around the edges.

Yenna wrenches herself away with the air of someone who’s slipped into an old habit without thinking and suddenly remembered that it’s forbidden. Julian clears his throat and stands up straighter, smoothing his ruined doublet – Yenna hasn’t deigned to repair _his_ clothes, though _she_ looks ready for a King’s banquet – and straightening the leather strap of his lute case where it crosses his chest. He smiles at her again, more guarded but still open, like he’s leaving the door open for someone in the hopes they’ll come inside.

Yennefer tosses her hair and pushes a thin branch out of her way, letting it snap back behind her in such a way that it would catch Julian across the face if he weren’t ready to catch it with an already-outstretched hand.

“Ger… our mutual friend tries that one too. You’ll have to get up earlier than that to put one over on me, Yenn.” Julian’s smile twists into something more maudlin as Fringilla watches. They can’t really expect that she won’t pick up on who their “mutual friend” is, but perhaps they’re just keeping up appearances. Maybe they intend to kill her, like they did the Scoia’tael. But if so, why are they bothering to keep her alive now? A prisoner takes up significant rations, time and manpower; it’s often easier and more economical to let them die. 

Fringilla stops that thought in its tracks, deciding she probably doesn’t want to know why they’re keeping her alive. Besides, it doesn’t matter; she’ll escape and kill them both before they have a chance to enact their plan.

“Go on then. Ask your questions, Jaskier. You’re thinking loud enough that I can’t help hearing them, anyway.” Yennefer drawls.

Yenna’s powers really must be on the up if she can’t help but hear the thoughts of those around them. The casual display of power makes Fringilla itch and burn with jealousy. The Dimeritium shackles seem to be fused to her skin, the unforgiving metal sucking any warmth from her and spreading ice through her limbs in its place.

Julian considers for a moment, then squares his shoulders. 

“Why did you kill that Squirrel?”

“We had to eat something for our dinner, Jaskier, and you weren’t exactly about to go out on the hunt.” Yennefer’s delight in being deliberately obtuse seems to have persisted beyond Aretuza. Fringilla used to find it funny when Yenna turned those tactics on the other girls, and on one memorable occasion, on Archmage de Vries herself. Even now she feels the corners of her mouth twitch a hair’s breadth upwards. She forces them down, keeps her eyes on her feet as they trudge onwards.

Julian sighs theatrically. “Why did you kill that Scoia’tael?”

“I killed three of them, Jaskier, you’ll have to be more specific.”

“By all the gods, Yenn, you’re lucky you’re ridiculously powerful and that your few good points balance out the rest of your personality… why did you kill _Nia?”_

“Because I had to, Jaskier.” The playful arrogance has left Yenna’s voice now. Fringilla can barely hear her over the patter of the light rain that falls through the pine trees, releasing the scent into the air and turning the ground to mulch beneath their feet.

“Did you? We could have let her go.”

Yenna jerks her head to the side in a half-shake. “You know what her mission was, Jaskier. We couldn’t risk her running off, gathering reinforcements and fulfilling the goal her commando set out to achieve.”

“That’s… true.” Julian’s brow furrows. The sun has gone down completely now, leaving the eerie blue light of dusk to illuminate their way. It makes Jaskier’s eyes seem almost completely black in their sockets, casts odd shadows over his cheekbones and brow when he turns to look at Fringilla. “And she was keen on depriving us of our charming travel companion.”

Fringilla gives him a glare, fingers itching for a weapon. If she had her powers, she would even now be scrying the future from his entrails. Haruspexy is banned in the North, of course. Just another way the useless Brotherhood seeks to curtail the power of individual mages. Their cowardice blinds them both figuratively and literally; it’s so endlessly frustrating. Fringilla looks forward to the day when she can liberate her fellow Sorcerers from the darkness and bring them to the light of the Great Sun.

“That’s right, she did have it in for Fringilla. She at least had some worthy goals, then.” Yenna glares right back at Fringilla, the way a guard dog rears and barks when someone dares get too close to the house where its owner lives. Fringilla just rolls her eyes. Honestly, the way these two are dancing around each other. She may have snapped at them for it by now if she didn’t know their soft spot for each other was her most likely way of gaining some power over the situation. People who care about each other are vulnerable. Yenna should know that by now; another lesson she’d failed to absorb in Aretuza. At least Fringilla had been a diligent student. She’d kept her lightning in a bottle on a shelf in her room for years, while Yenna had barely held her bolt for a moment before discharging it at an enemy she couldn’t hope to beat. Fringilla had been furious at the waste of it, at the time.

The path below them changes from the narrow dirt hunting trail whose meandering route they have been following up the mountainside to an even narrower shingle walkway. Yennefer conjures a fireball to hang above them and light their way. They pass through one last clump of pine trees and then the space to their right suddenly opens up, a harsh cold wind blowing up from the ravine that’s yawning beside them. Fringilla gasps involuntarily, leaning to her left to feel the reassuringly solid stone cliff beside her. She risks peeking over the side where the path drops away and sees the trees at the bottom of the valley made comically small by distance. It could be a trick of the light, but she swears there are _clouds_ below them. She tastes bile at the back of her throat and forces herself to swallow.

Julian seems equally unhappy at the change of scenery, paling when he sees the sheer drop just a few inches away. He turns to Yennefer. “Uh… ladies first?” Yenna smirks and pushes him onwards. Julian smiles weakly too, like it’s they’ve shared an in-joke. “Aah! All right, yep… come on, Jaskier. you’ve got this.”

They climb the path in silence for a few minutes, concentrating on their footing. But it seems that the bard is incapable of being silent for long.

“We couldn’t have let her go, you’re probably right. Not as she was anyway. But what if you’d made her forget? Then we could have released her and carried on.” Julian speaks slowly, without any of his usual stuttering or rambling, as if he’s picking his words as carefully as he’s placing his feet.

Yenna turns her violet eyes on him. “I only took away her life, Jaskier. I wouldn’t take away her _self. _Whatever you might think, I’m not a monster.__

__“I could have taken her memory of her orders from Nilfgaard and her comrades. I could have taken the knowledge of what happened to her sister, even the love she’d had for her sibling. But that would have been worse than death. She wouldn’t have been Nia anymore.”_ _

__Jaskier opens his mouth as if to argue. Yennefer holds up a hand, interrupts before he even has a chance to start speaking: “It would be like someone taking your poetry, your music, from you.” Jaskier’s mouth snaps shut as solemn understanding blooms on his face._ _

__Yenna pauses, looks up at the and the birds they can see wheeling in the sky over the valley beside them. “It was quick, and she was herself to the end. I hope that whoever kills you in the end has the grace to do you the favour I did Nia.”_ _

__Jaskier’s moment of seriousness clears like a cloud passing over the sun. “Whoever kills me? Who said anyone is going to _kill_ me?”_ _

__Yenna rolls her eyes. “The real question is, how has no one done it already? I give you another year, tops, before…”_ _

__Fringilla is so intent on listening to their conversation that she forgets to pay attention to her footing. One moment she’s limping onwards as best she can while straining to hear every word her captors say, the next a stone shifts below her right foot when it comes down. The rock rolls away, forcing her leg to slide out from beneath her. She’s unable to catch herself with her bound limbs, and she lands heavily on one knee. Hands hampered by rope and Dimeritium scrabble at the floor as she slides and rolls, unable to find purchase. Somewhere above her, Yenna and Julian are shouting. The loose stone of the path continues to shift beneath her as she falls on her side, the world lurching sickeningly as she rolls over and over and towards the edge of the ravine…_ _

__The shock of the moment where solid ground disappears from beneath her is a punch to the gut, forcing all the air from her lungs. She hangs suspended for a long moment, looking down at the river that lies like a tangled white ribbon at the bottom of the ravine. She begins to fall, still twisting and hitting the jagged rocks that stick out of the side of the ravine. She screams, but it’s cut off when her temple smashes against the cliff face with enough force to rattle her teeth in her head._ _

__Her last coherent thought is that she can’t die when she has so much left to accomplish. The floor of the ravine rushes up towards her, as if eager to prove her wrong._ _


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an adventure's not an adventure without a near-death experience or two. or several.

Jaskier stares, rooted to the spot in horror as Fringilla tumbles towards the precipice. The rope that’s been restricting her movement unspools behind her like a dropped ball of yarn. Yennefer’s fireball casts long shadows all around, distorting perspective and colour.

 _Maybe it’s a trick of the light, that’s why she looks like she’s so close to the drop. She’ll stop before she reaches the edge,_ a distant part of him thinks.

She doesn’t stop before she reaches the edge.

He catches sight of Fringilla’s panicked expression as she rolls towards the point where the cliff drops away to nothing. The terror in her eyes finally jerks him into motion where he had been frozen to the spot. He sprints forwards, chasing the end of the rope that’s been wrapped around her since they left the Nilfgaardian camp and is now rapidly following her over the cliff.

Jaskier jumps, landing full length on his stomach on the gravel path, and manages to catch at the end of the rope before it’s lost to the abyss that yawns a foot away from him. He’s jerked forwards as the rope goes taut when it takes Fringilla’s weight at the other end. He feels the tug of its fibres against his skin re-open the deep gashes in his palms and fingers that Yennefer only recently closed after their fight with the Squirrels. Blood makes the rope both sticky and slippery, but he refuses to let go.

 _“Jaskier!”_ Yenn yells from behind him. He must be delirious with the adrenaline, because she sounds panicked. But that can’t be right. Yennefer never panics.

“Yenn! Help?” He blinks as dust from the gravel path finds its way into his eyes, making them sting and water.

“Stay there!” Yennefer commands. And Jaskier would like to obey, he would _really like to._ In fact, he can safely say there’s nothing he’d rather do at this moment than stay exactly where he is. But the weight of a fully-grown woman is hanging at the other end of the rope, and while his hands and fingers are extremely strong from years of constant lute playing, that’s not enough to haul a dead weight back up a cliff.

 _Where’s a ridiculously strong Witcher when you need one?_ Jaskier asks himself frantically. Despite Yennefer’s instructions and his own intent, he’s watching the cliff edge inch closer and closer as the rope tugs him inexorably forwards.

The precipice edges closer, and closer still. It reaches his hands, exposing them to the cold air of the drop as they are forged to dangle over the side. It can only take a few seconds at most, but as he watches his forearms follow his hands over the side somehow agonisingly slowly and much too fast at the same time. His fingers are going numb, which would be nice as they _had_ felt like they were on fire, but if they’re numb then his grip will loosen.

His elbows are dragged over the drop.

Yennefer is behind him, chanting something in Elder that he can’t make out.

“Yenn, I don’t mean to be impatient but if you could _do something…”_

“Shut up, Jaskier.” Yennefer orders through gritted teeth. The rope jerks forwards, dragging Jaskier with it. His stomach somersaults as the movement causes him to overbalance and pitches him over the side of the path.

All his useless brain can think in the roar of panic as he leaves solid land for the careless embrace of thin air is that it would be fitting if _Shut up, Jaskier,_ were the last words he ever heard. Consistent with the rest of his life, at least, if not comforting. He lets go of the rope in his terror, and the loose end of it whips and flails in the turbulence as it falls. It catches him as it flies past, scoring a white-hot line against his shoulder. He screams.

The scenery flashes past as he turns over and over, unable to control his fall: the white water river and the trees beneath him, still small but getting bigger distressingly quickly. The dark sky. The ravine floor, looking much closer now. The sky with the cliff edge silhouetted against it that seems extremely far away now, demonstrating how far he’s fallen _and yet he’s still going._

A drop like this is not survivable, he knows. He wonders if he should close his eyes so he can’t see the ground rushing up to meet him, but somehow he doubts that would help.

On his next turn he sees a portal open just below Fringilla. The mage disappears into it – was she conscious after all, somehow managing to conjure a portal despite the Dimeritium? Will she leave him to fall to his death after he fell trying to save her? It strikes him as wildly ungrateful.

He spins so he’s facing upwards again, just in time to see Yenn perform a graceful dive off the side of the path like she’s jumping into the sea on a calm summer’s day.

“Yez, no!” he screams, too late. She’s already hurtling towards him with a look of determination on her face. She must be magically propelling herself somehow, because she catches up with his descent and wraps strong arms around his waist to direct his fall towards the portal.

 _Yenn’s_ portal, he realises.

Jaskier feels the usual jolting sensation that always comes with travelling by portal, smells the telltale scent of ozone that always accompanies potent magic. They re-emerge from the other side of the portal and Jaskier thinks for a moment that it hasn’t worked; the scenery around them is the same. Is it possible for a portal to fail? Is it possible for _anything_ Yenn does to fail?

Then he realises that it _has_ worked; they have travelled, but not as far as he’d expected. Yenn has brought them much closer to the floor of the valley, reducing their fall enough that they shouldn’t die from their descent.

Jaskier eyes the ground nervously for one last instant. The fall probably won’t kill them, but it’ll definitely hurt like…

He lands in the frigid river water splayed full length on his stomach. It hurts like hell, and he sinks like a stone.

Yennefer somehow manages to turn so she hits the water feet first, toes pointed to minimise the impact. Jaskier flounders in the water that surrounds him, his breath and sense of direction knocked out of him by his collision with the river. Yenn grabs him by the collar and hauls him in a direction that he assumes must be _up._ She’s already cursing when their heads break the surface.

“Of all the bloody _stupid_ things to do, you idiot bard! You could’ve been _killed._ I should have let you die, maybe you’d learn your lesson then…”

She keeps up the deluge of insults and complaints as she drags him towards the edge of the water, picking up Fringilla’s limp form as she goes. Jaskier can feel that the current is too strong for a normal human to fight, rushing downhill with irresistible strength. Yenn barely seems to notice, surging forwards like a force of nature herself. In moments, she deposits them both none-too-gently on the river bank and glares down at them. 

“Idiots, the pair of you.”

Jaskier cannot respond for the moment, too busy coughing up water and gulping down air. The damp ground is harsh where his limbs are pressed into it, with pine cones and what feels like every sharp rock on the Continent conveniently placed where they can dig into him. Every inch of him feels like it’s been pummelled by several tons of water, which he supposes it has. The river is vicious and fast. Even from the reduced height of the portal, he doubts he’d have made it out alive if it weren’t for Yennefer. The stars seem crystalline in the firmament above him, and he’s ridiculously grateful to still be alive to witness them.

Yenn nudges Fringilla with the toe of her boot. She’s rewarded with a groan.

“What…?” Fringilla looks around wild-eyed. “How?”

“We saved you.” Yenn tells her.

“You’re welcome,” Jaskier adds on reflex. Oh, gods, his voice is rough and ragged from the water and all the coughing. It’s a good thing he’s not likely to be performing any time soon.

“Speak for yourself, Jaskier. I’d just have soon let her drop.” Yenn says absently. She’s staring up at the path they fell from with a slight frown, as if calculating how to get back up there and on their way once more.

Jaskier groans. His breath condenses in the air in front of him, hanging in a perfect white cloud before it dissipates. “I think that little adventure was the gods telling us to stop for the night. I for one agree with them.”

In all honesty, Jaskier’s not sure he’d be able to continue. He feels too thoroughly battered to walk any further. The cold against his wet skin and clothes is biting, sapping his strength. He’s shivering, though he’s not sure if that’s from the freezing temperature, the aftermath of the near-death experience, or both. His fingers and toes are somehow painful and numb at the same time.

Yenn sighs. She’s already dry, looking as perfect as ever. “Fine.”

“Thanks, Yenn. And for the rescue, too. Although, couldn’t you have portalled us a little closer to the ground? Or somewhere with a softer landing? I’m delicate, you know.” He tries for a joking tone, but he must land somewhere more in the area of accusatory judging by the way Yenn rounds on him. His intonation must have been garbled by the way his teeth are chattering.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Yenn draws herself up to her full height. “Next time, _you_ can create a portal to catch three moving targets under a ridiculous time constraint, and in the dark to boot. Well? Go on. I’ll wait.”

Jaskier holds his shaking hands up to surrender, though he drops them quickly. It’s hurts too much to keep them aloft.

“Sorry.”

“I’m going to get some firewood, seeing as I’m the only one who can do anything _productive_ around here.” She whirls around and stamps off into the forest as though the ground has done something to mortally offend her. Jaskier feels like all she’s done since they have escaped the Nilfgaard camp is pull away from him, but he can’t help but watch her fondly as she storms away. It’s not like he’s not used to people distancing themselves from him. Sooner or later, everyone gets tired of him. He’d just hoped it would take Yenn longer.

“You okay?” He asks Fringilla, forcing himself out of his reverie. No sense in dwelling.

“Yes.” She looks shaken, her hair and clothes waterlogged and bedraggled, but otherwise seems fine. 

“Good. That’s good.” The cold air burns in his lungs, though that could be the after-effects of swallowing half the river and then coughing it up again in quick succession. He hugs his arms to himself in an ineffective attempt to try and warm himself. An unfamiliar stiffness when he moves his head tells him that his hair has started to freeze in the frigid air. _Yenn will be back with firewood soon,_ he reassures himself. “Hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly. Although an adventure isn’t truly an adventure without a little danger of death, I always say! Don’t you agree?”

“…why did you save me?” Fringilla asks quietly, rather than answering his question.

Jaskier smiles a small smile, feeling like his chilled skin might crack with it. Her question is the perfect way in. He knows that Yenn has been speaking to Fringilla, he’s been leaving them alone for her to do so more easily. But she doesn’t seem to be making much progress in winning her old classmate around.

Leaving it to Yenn may not have been one of his best plans, he’ll admit. She’s powerful, and terrifying, but not subtle. Perhaps Fringilla needs a different approach to get her to open up.

“I’d try to save anyone who was falling into a ravine? You may be a Nilfgaardian mage but you don’t deserve that. Anyone would do the same.” 

“Not _anyone._ In Nilfgaard, Cahir… most people… “ Fringilla shakes her head to indicate that they wouldn’t save her like Yennefer and Jaskier had, and looks at him with the seed of something that might one day grow into trust. _Bingo._ “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Jaskier closes his eyes, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. He can feel tiny particles of ice in his eyelashes where they rest against his cheeks. His clothes are freezing, literally; he can feel them unnaturally hard against his skin. His mind feels slow too, as if that’s freezing over as well. 

His limbs don’t hurt any more, though, which is nice. In fact, he almost feels warm. There’s something that should be troubling about that, he thinks, but he can’t remember what it is. 

He’s vaguely aware of Fringilla’s voice somewhere close by, though it seems to be coming to him through water, distorted and garbled beyond recognition. He tries to listen anyway, but he can’t concentrate on the words enough to work out their meaning.

He’s stopped shivering, at least. He feels like he’s rocking, as if he’s still submerged and being buffeted by the current.

 _Hypothermia,_ he realises. That’s what’s worrying about not feeling cold any more. The knowledge rises in his consciousness slowly, like it has to fight its way to the front of his mind. He could die. He knows this, but the fact is distant and difficult to hold on to.

Fringilla has stopped asking him things, he thinks, instead just repeating one word over and over. With a last burst of effort, Jaskier manages to recognise the word: _Julian._ He wants to scrunch up his nose in distaste, tell her to call him Jaskier, but his mouth doesn’t seem to be taking instruction. He tries to wiggle his fingers, but they too are stiff and unresponsive.

That realisation manages to finally pierce the fog that’s taken up residence in his mind. His mouth and hands are how he makes a living – and they’re important tools in other less public but extremely fun situations, too. He can’t lose them and still remain Jaskier the Bard.

Quick as he can muster the panic, it’s gone again. The darkness rises to engulf him, and if it means he doesn’t have to live without his hands and mouth, then Jaskier thinks he doesn’t mind. He’d rather not exist at all than exist without his music. It’s not like anyone will miss him, anyway.

Just before he surrenders to unconsciousness for what he knows will be the last time, he hears a sharp voice bark “Jayjay!” and then he hears nothing at all.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier's hypothermia looks bad. Yennefer is DONE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Cwts_ is a Welsh word that means something like a cuddle but better, but kind've also means "safe space". Elder is based heavily on Welsh (and Gaelic and Cornish and... just all the ancient British languages) so i'm taking that as justification to insert some Welsh into this.
> 
> some people might argue that it should be spelled "cwtch", but i respecfully disagree.

Yennefer stalks through the trees towards the riverbank by the light of the fireball she’s summoned, a bundle of firewood floating obediently beside her. The path is muddy, but no dirt has dared besmirch the hem of her dress. She breathes deeply, letting the scent of pine and mulch soothe her as far as it can.

She’s given herself enough time to get a rein on her anger; it’s bubbling below the surface in a controlled way, now. She’s no longer in danger of killing Jaskier for almost killing himself, for _scaring_ her like that… she pushes a branch out of the way as she nears the river once more.

And then he’d had the nerve to complain about the way she’d saved him! The audacity of the man! She should make good on the threat she’d made in Rinde and cut his bollocks off. She should…

“Jayjay!”

The wood clatters to the floor, forgotten. Fringilla and Jaskier are exactly where she left them on the bank of the river, but Jaskier is lying prone and limp and Fringilla is practically on top of him, her hands on his face ready to harm…

Yennefer blasts her off without thinking and runs to Jaskier. Fringilla flies several metres before she hits the ground, grunting as she hits the floor and rolls a few more feet. If she’s done anything to hurt Jaskier, she’s going to have to deal with a lot more than that, Yennefer promises herself.

Yennefer ignores Fringilla’s wheezed complaints to kneel at Jaskier’s side, trying to assess the damage. How had the stupid bloody bard managed to become overpowered by a mage shackled in Dimeritium? Even he’s not that useless…

Her fingers fly over his unconscious form, looking for injury. There are no choke marks on his neck, no evidence of blunt force trauma… but Jaskier’s lips are blue, his skin eerily cold beneath her fingers… could it be a curse?

“What did you _do?”_ Yennefer demands, relying on decades of practice to keep her voice even.

Fringilla spits blood before she answers. She must have bitten her cheek when Yenn threw her. “He’s freezing. I was trying to warm him up when _someone_ came along and blasted me away.”

Yenn’s panic subsides enough for her to take in some details. Jaskier _is_ freezing, Fringilla’s right. His clothes are soaked from their impromptu swim, the water turning to ice in the air of a harsh Northern winter, and he was weakened to begin with. She’d been so angry about him almost killing himself in an heroic doomed effort to save someone not worth saving, she hadn’t stopped to consider that she might lose him to a much more mundane death.

No. Fuck that.

Yenn concentrates and starts pulling power from the air. She prefers fire as a Source to draw from, usually, and water’s extremely useful. But greedy fire and stoic water won’t do for Jaskier, who’s flighty and changeable and subtle in ways no one would expect. For him, it has to be air.

The cold air resists her, but she pushes through its opposition. Fringilla gasps at the sudden drop in pressure as Yenn forces the atmosphere to yield its power to her, sensing the exchange of Chaos even with the Dimeritium blocking her magic.

When she’s finally satisfied she has the reserves she needs, Yennefer turns to Jaskier’s distressingly pale form. She forces herself to work slowly – warming him up too quickly would be just as fatal as not warming him at all. She starts with his clothes, drying and heating them gently around him. Then she lets a warming and relaxing spell trickle into him a little at a time, holding her breath as she does. Slowly, the blue tint on his lips and the whiteness in his fingers is replaced by pink. Even unconscious, Jaskier groans at the pain of heat re-entering his body.

That won’t do. Without stopping the gentle influx of heat into his frame, she presses her hand to his forehead and eases him from a hypothermia-induced faint to a healing sleep. His brow smooths under her palm as the pained expression leaves him. Satisfied, Yenn continues her work.

When she’s warmed Jaskier as thoroughly as she dares, she turns to gather the wood she’d dropped to start a fire. She’s not about to have all her hard work undone by Jaskier freezing in the night.

The wood’s not where she left it. Yenn spins around and sees that Fringilla’s brought the pile closer, though it’s still far enough from the river to escape the water’s chill, and built the beginnings of a fire. It’s well constructed; it’ll catch with barely a spark. 

This doesn’t make sense. She’s been completely distracted while caring for Jaskier. Fringilla could have run. She could have attacked Yenn while she was too focused on Jaskier to anticipate an attack. But she hadn’t. Yenn glares at Fringilla, trying to work out what game the other mage is playing.

Fringilla sees her questioning look. “He saved me. I wasn’t about to interfere with you healing him after that. I know what it means to be in a life debt. Now light the fire, will you? I’m cold too.”

Well, Yenn’s not going to argue, even if she doesn’t believe her. She ignites the wood with a well-aimed fireball. It’s overkill, of course, but that’s not the point. The point is that she can conjure a fireball, and Fringilla can’t. Then she levitates Jaskier to the fire so he can be warmed all night, though not too close – the danger of overheating too quickly may not have passed yet. She sits down close enough to the bard to hear his breathing, to reach out and feel his pulse. The proximity is only sensible when you’re looking after a patient, she reasons. And sharing body heat is supposed to be helpful. That’s all. Fringilla settles on the other side of the fire.

“You could’ve escaped,” she tells Fringilla after a beat.

“I could. But where would I go? I have no idea where I am, no way of getting food, no way of freeing myself from these bindings. Even if I find a commando of Scoia’tael, experience shows that I’m unlikely to get a warm welcome from them.”

Yennefer shrugs. She followed the arguments, of course, but she still doesn’t understand the decision Fringilla came to. Yenn would rather run from her captors even if it meant her certain death. It would be better than losing her freedom.

A memory rises, unbidden. A Djinn-demolished room, wind whipping around her as an uninvited Witcher makes a wish. Her anger flares, and the fire burns higher for a moment as if in sympathy.

Jaskier shifts slightly in his sleep, bringing himself closer to Yennefer. When he’s near enough that he’s practically cuddling her, he settles, mumbling a sound of contentment. Without actually meaning to, she raises a hand and combs her fingers through his hair. She’s sharply aware of the irony that he’ll _cwts_ up to her in his sleep, but waking he doesn’t trust her even when she’s the only ally he has. 

The feelings of his that she’d felt when she’d seen herself through his eyes hit her again. The wariness, mistrust, the urge to pull away combine, strong enough to make her feel weak in comparison.

She shifts away from the slumbering bard. Jaskier frowns in his sleep.

“Do you ever wonder what you’d have been like now if you’d gone to Aedirn instead of Nilfgaard?” Yenn asks, fixing her eyes on Fringilla because it’s less painful than looking at Jaskier. Or herself.

Fringilla runs a thumb over the ropes that wrap around her arm. “No. The Great Sun had other plans for me, and I’m glad.”

Yenn nods. It’s the answer she’d expected.

“What about you?” Fringilla asks.

“What?”

“What if you’d gone to Nilfgaard?”

Another memory, of a windswept mountain and a three-day hike where no one but a dragon in disguise got what they wanted at the journey’s end.

 _Perhaps if Nilfgaard’s religious zeal had been tempered earlier by a stronger hand…_

The words Borch said to her at the campfire on the dragon hunt rankle with her even now. How dare he? How _dare_ he? To lay the actions of Nilfgaard – and therefore the deaths of her fellow mages at Sodden (she does not think about Sabrina lying broken at the foot of the tower, nor Triss’s agony at the gate, nor Coral’s lifeless form on the muddy ground), as well as the massacre at Cintra and all the other carnage that’s been wreaked across the South – at her feet when all she’d wanted was some fucking agency. A fucking _choice._

What’s more, he’d said that to her when he already knew that every other choice had been taken away from her. He knew her past, so he knew about the four marks that had bought her away from everything she knew and to Aretuza. And he knew about the Djinn in Rinde. Of course he knew, that’s why he’d been the one to break the good news about Geralt’s wish to her. And yet he still dared passive-aggressively reproach her for not mindlessly going wherever the Brotherhood told her to.

It just went to show that, even though he was a dragon, he was still a fucking man. And a fucking prick.

“Yenna?” Fringilla asks, cutting through her thoughts.

“What?”

“What if you’d gone to Nilfgaard?” Fringilla repeats patiently.

“If I’d been on Nilfgaard’s side the Battle of Sodden Hill would have gone very differently.” Yenn says flippantly. Fringilla doesn’t laugh. Yennefer holds her gaze for a moment, then sighs. “I don’t know, Gill. I don’t know that Yennefer. She made different choices to me, choices that I don’t understand, and went down a different path. She’s someone alien to me. She’s not my business. It’s who _I_ am that matters.

Fringilla is staring open-mouthed.

“What now?” Yenn snaps.

“You.. no one calls me Gill. Not since… well, not since Aretuza.”

“Well, I haven’t liked being called Yenna since before my Transformation. We don’t always get what we want.”

“No, I… I don’t mind it, actually.”

Yenn shrugs again. Fringilla doesn’t say anything else, just huddles closer to the fire’s warmth. It must soothe her, because she’s soon asleep. Yenn watches the fire, keeping it built high and hot. The wood is damp from the winter snows, and it crackles and pops when she throws it onto the heat as the water boils away, purged by the flames. Sparks fly up into the air as if to challenge the cold light of the stars. The smell of woodsmoke fills her nose until she can’t smell it any more. 

She tries to plan ahead: their route to Aard Carraigh, how they’ll track down Geralt and Princess Cirilla once they’re there, what she’ll do if they come across more Squirrels or some other enemy. But she can’t concentrate, her attention keeps snapping back to Jaskier where he tosses and turns beside her. The more restful his sleep, the better he’ll heal, but he’s been fitful since she distanced herself from him. 

Making a show of being hard done by for an audience of no one but two sleeping witnesses, she moves closer to Jaskier and lets him _cwts_ up to her once more. He calms almost instantly. His hand finds her fingers and squeeze.

She’s only doing it so he’ll heal faster. She can’t afford to have him weak and ill on their march.

After an indeterminate length of time, Jaskier begins to stir. There isn’t even a hint of dawn in the sky, so it can’t have been that long, but she could swear they’ve been here for days.

Jaskier blinks and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. As Yennefer watches, he seems to realise that this means he actually _has_ functioning hands, and he looks at them in wonder, stretching them to test their dexterity. He opens his mouth, trills out some tongue-twister that she recognises as part of his warm-up routine that he runs through before a performance.

“Do you doubt my healing abilities, Jaskier?” She asks, amused.

“No, I know from experience that you’re a superlative healer. I might doubt my own ability to heal, though.” He turns sparkling eyes on her. “Thank you, Yenn.”

She picks up his lute case which is still guarding its precious cargo inside, and drops it in his lap. “This was smashed to pieces. I fixed it for you.”

Before she can react, he’s on her, the silk of his ruined doublet smooth against her skin. He wraps his arms around her neck, burying his face into her shoulder. “My hero! Yennefer of Vengerburg, light of my life, saviour of my skin and livelihood! I will love you forever.”

She pushes him off roughly, her anger rushing to the surface in an instant. She doesn’t trust her self to speak without blowing like a geyser.

He laughs. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Don’t want to ruin your dastardly reputation, after all.”

“It’s not that,” she spits. If he were sensible he’d cower, but he just looks amused, as if a sorceress’s wrath is nothing to be afraid of. Like she couldn’t crush him on a whim. But then, he’s used to travelling with someone who could kill him without breaking a sweat; maybe this is normal to him. But she’s much scarier than Geralt.

His expression grows serious when he sees that her anger is real. 

“Yez? What is it?”

Yenenfer hisses at the pet name, eyes darting to Fringilla. Fortunately for Jaskier, the other mage sleeps on in blissful ignorance. Still, Yenn won’t forgive herself for allowing Jaskier to get away with such informality for so long.

“It’s _Yennefer_ to you, bard.” 

Jaskier blinks. “Okay… _Yennefer…_ what’s wrong?”

He says it with such concern. Like he cares. But he’s a performer, an actor, she’s seen him reel in lovers and patrons with kind words and sweet looks enough times to know that. Why had she thought she’d be any different? That he wouldn’t try and fool her too?

She can’t bear it, this fake affection that’s too close to reality, that does nothing but show her what she doesn’t have. Nothing in her life is hers, nothing in her life is _real._ Her relationship with Geralt is a lie, forced on her by the Djinn and a wish she had no say in. Now Jaskier is trying to ensnare her in an equally false friendship. 

She’d rather be alone.

She stands abruptly, ready to stalk away. Jaskier is still close, his fingers tangled in her dress from where he hugged her, but he lets go quickly. She marches away from the warmth and the firelight, from Jaskier’s still-recovering form, from her childhood friend-turned-enemy. The empty forest beckons, and she both longs for and dreads its silence.

“Yennefer?” Jaskier calls after her.

“Find your own way to Aard Carraigh and Geralt of fucking Rivia. I’m done with all of you.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier tries to explain himself but there's something in the woods...

“Yennefer!”

Jaskier runs to overtakes her, stopping in front of her with both arms outstretched and an imploring look. His undershirt shines bone-white where it’s exposed by the tears in his doublet.

“Come on, Yennefer, talk to me.”

She pushes past him to the treeline and beyond, eyes straight ahead. He’s still following her, flitting around her as she strides onwards. She ignores him like she would a fly; he’ll get bored and leave her alone soon. Before long, she’s proved right when he lags behind.

“At least Geralt gave me a reason before he abandoned me in the wilderness! Even if it was a shit one.” He shouts after her.

That gets her attention, though she doesn’t stop moving.

“We’re nothing alike. You two, though, go together perfectly. I can see why you travelled with him for so long.” She shouts over her shoulder. It’s true, anyway. They both tried to force a relationship on her on their terms. Why should she show forgiveness for that?

Jaskier frowns. “What d’you mean?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” She keeps walking. He runs after her again, twigs snapping beneath his feet. He swears when his doublet catches on a bramble and tears as he tugs it free, but he keeps following.

“Well, no, you don’t, but it might _help_ if you do. It’d certainly help _me._ Wait… is this because I said I’d love you forever? I know you’re allergic to expressions of emotion, Yennefer, but I didn’t think…”

Yennefer’s patience finally snaps.

“It’s not because you expressed an emotion, Jaskier, it’s because it was a _lie!”_

Jaskier’s stupid face crumples in hurt and confusion. Yennefer’s even more stupid gut shrivels in response, like she should feel bad for making him feel bad. Like he doesn’t deserve it.

“But… it wasn’t a lie?” He says in a small voice.

She laughs, a joyless sound that rings through the silent forest. “I felt it, Jaskier. You can’t deny it. Back in the Nilfgaardian camp, when I used your eyes to get a look at our cells. The spell… it works metaphorically as well as literally. I saw what you could see, but that meant that I saw things _as you see them._ And, when I saw myself, I felt what you feel when you look at me: like you wouldn’t trust me as far as you could throw me. Is that love?”

Jaskier’s eyes are wide and shining at her in the darkness. “Wait, you can experience other peoples’ emotions too? That’s fascinating, how does… no, right, you’re right, that conversation can wait until another time. But look, Yenn, that’s… ah, fuck, I’ve really fucked this up haven’t I?” He runs his hands through his hair, tugging at it as if to punish himself. He gazes at her, bereft.

“We’re done, Jaskier.” Yennefer goes to move away, uninterested what further lies he might spin her.

“No, wait, Yenn, please!” His voice is desperate as he runs in front of her again. “Look at yourself, Yenn.”

Yenenfer feels her lip curl into a snarl. “If you value your life, bard, you’ll get out of my way.”

“No! No, I mean… I mean, look at yourself through my eyes again. I… I don’t think you’ll believe me if I explain, so you’ll just have to check for yourself. Please.”

Jaskier is clasping his hands in front of his chest as if praying, imploring her to do as he asks. It’s a dramatic and effective pose, so much so that she’s convinced he struck it on purpose. He’s a poet and extremely vain to boot, after all. She wouldn’t put it past him to practice certain stances in the mirror, adjusting them for maximum effect when he uses them in public. 

He looks strangely naked as she looks at him, and it takes a moment for her to realise that he’s left his lute behind at the camp to run after her.

“Fine.” She sighs dramatically. If he’s so desperate to have her confirm what she already knows, then so be it. She can just as easily leave him in the dust behind her after proving herself right.

She exhales, and concentrates. For a disorientating moment the dual images of what she can see from her own eyes and Jaskier’s point of view are superimposed, giving her mismatched double vision, but then her vision resolves into what Jaskier can see: her own form, standing in an aggressive stance right in front of him. And she can feel… she can feel…

Awe. Fondness. An urge to remain close and see her happy. Attraction

And an overwhelming fear that she’ll hurt him like he’s been hurt before. Like the last person he felt this way about hurt him, and the person before that, and the one before that…

He thinks he can’t trust her not to hurt him. But also, the iron-clad certainty that knowing her is worth the risk of being hurt.

Jaskier’s mind offers a word, an umbrella term for all these feelings: _love._

“Oh,” she breathes.

“Yenn…” she feels Jaskier’s mouth form the word, tastes how her name is sweet and thrilling on his tongue. He takes a step towards her still form, and she can feel the heated intent behind his movement…

She’s pulled from the moment by something in Jaskier’s peripheral vision. Something that he’s not noticed, too intent on her, but that is visible to him just behind her left shoulder: two glowing red eyes. As she watches from Jaskier’s viewpoint in horror, a third fiery eye opens above them…

Yennefer’s eyes snap open in her own face. She reaches forwards and shoves Jaskier away from her, using Chaos to put extra force into it. He flies ten feet, bouncing to a stop with a grunt. He looks up with a wounded expression, but Yennefer is already turning to face…

The Fiend swipes her with one enormous forepaw, sending her sailing through the air until her trajectory is interrupted by a boulder some fifteen feet away. She feels several ribs crack on the impact, a sickening _crunch_ confirming the injury beyond a doubt. All the strength and surety has been knocked from her; all she can think of is the pain that sears her torso. Her thoughts are a scattered jumble, like they’ve been shaken loose by the impact. She slumps to the floor, gasping, and manages to raise her head in time to see Jaskier attempt to stand.

His movement attracts the Fiend’s attention. She can see it better now it’s stepped into the moonlight: its antlers like those of a stag swing as it turns its head to look at the bard. The coarse brown fur that sparsely covers some of its mountainous form reeks like a wet dog, the white skin that’s exposed is taut over ridiculously large muscles. It’s built like a fucking barn, and its squashed face makes it look like it ran into a brick wall at high speed. Its feet look like those of a bird that Yenn saw once in her travels overseas that the locals had called an ostrich.

The Fiend has turned fully towards Jaskier now. It begins to move towards the bard, slowly at first but soon gaining momentum.

“Jaskier! Stay _down!”_ Yennefer orders. 

Jaskier, of course, ignores her. He actually turns and hastily climbs a tree, moving nimbly up between its branches like he does it every day. It’s… actually not a bad tactic. Yenn breathes a sigh of relief for a moment before returning to the task at hand.

“Hey!” She screams at the outsize monster, gathering the remains of her Chaos to her. “Over here!”

She waits for it to turn towards her before hitting it in the face with a fireball. It rears back and roars, pawing at its face with its weird bird-feet, but seems mostly unharmed. It glares at her, lowering its head and growling in readiness to charge.

“…shit.”

She throws up a shield around herself just in time to stop the worst of the hit, but the sheer strength of the thing manages to break through her protection spell. It bounces away from the shield as it shatters while the force of its attack forces Yennefer to her knees, the forcefield dissolving into gold sparkles and then nothing. The Fiend is on its feet again in no time, approaching her once more. She’s panting on the floor, too stunned for the moment to do anything other than brace for the impact, for all the good that will do…

“Oi!” 

A pine cone bounces off the Fiend’s head. It turns to see Jaskier up the tree, already throwing another missile. 

“Hey! You stupid… Fiend… thing! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

The Fiend charges away from her towards its new tormentor. Jaskier seems smug from his position in the tree, safe in the knowledge that the Fiend can’t climb up after him… until the Fiend charges full pelt into the trunk. The tree shudders and rocks, and Yennefer sees Jaskier cling on for dear life as a shower of pinecones and needles rain to the forest floor.

The tree is sturdy and old and does not break from the Fiend’s first attempt, but Yennefer can see it won’t last much longer against the attack. The Fiend circles the tree, as if looking for a better angle to attack from. Jaskier will die as soon as he is back on the ground.

“I can’t stop it,” she whispers in realisation. “I need more Chaos.” But there are no handy sources from which to draw it…

“Use mine,” a voice from behind her says.

Yennefer spins around to see Fringilla standing beside her, holding out her hands to present the Dimeritium cuffs, the exact replicas of the ones she’d used on Yennefer. The ones she’d used to harvest Yennefer’s Chaos.

“I… what?” this has to be some sort of trap.

“The manacles have been working. They’ve harvested Chaos from me since you put them on me all that time ago. You said yourself, one mage isn’t enough to take down a Fiend, not even you. So take it.”

“I…”

The sound of the Fiend colliding with Jaskier’s tree reverberates through the forest. Jaskier screams.

“Aargh! Yennefer! Help!” 

His voice holds such certainty, as if he doesn’t doubt – could never doubt – that Yennefer will save him.

Yenn looks down at the Dimeritium manacles on Fringilla’s wrists. It must be a trap, some sort of trick, but she has no other option.

Yennefer lays her hands on the cold Dimeritium, feeling Fringilla’s Chaos flow into her almost instantly. It blows past all her anxieties, all her insecurity, the exhaustion of a night with no sleep and leaves behind nothing but power and the certainty that she can use it. She inhales deeply as she feels her ribs heal themselves almost without effort. It’s heady, and effective, and she can’t help but lean forward and take more, and more, and _more…_

“Yenna…” Fringilla gasps. Yennefer blinks, and realises Gill has sunk to the floor looking distinctly ashen. She snatches her hands back, releasing Fringilla’s wrists. The other mages cradles her hands to her chest, coughing and whimpering, but still alive. That’s good enough for now. Yennefer has something else requiring her urgent attention…

She turns and sees that Jaskier’s tree is tilting precariously. A stiff breeze could knock it over at this point, but the Fiend is backing up to ram it again at full power.

She blasts it with a quick burst of controlled Chaos to get its attention. A normal beast would have been felled by such an onslaught, but the Fiend turns to her like she’s a fleeting inconvenience. Yennefer grins: this is going to be fun.

The Fiend considers her for a second, its head tilting ponderously. Then it lets its third eye blinks open…

Yenn has read about this. A Fiend’s third eye can hypnotise its prey, freezing it so that they can’t move and its fiery gaze is the last thing they see before their deaths.

She clicks her fingers. A fallen branch flies forwards and spears the Fiend’s third eye, preventing any and all future hypnosis. Blood and vitreous humour flows down the Fiend’s flattened face, past a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. The Fiend _roars._

It paws at the ground, charging her one more. She throws up another shield at the last moment. This time when the Fiend runs into it, her forcefield holds. One of the Fiend’s antlers snaps off from the force of the collision, dropping to the floor and getting crushed beneath one of the Fiend’s own feet. Yenn hears Jaskier cheer from his perch in the tree.

The Fiend roars again. Yenn lets her shield drop so it can charge her once more, only to levitate out of the way just before it can trample her. The Fiend tries to skid to a halt, but cannot halt itself before it crashes into several trees. The wood tears into its skin as the Fiend’s momentum drags it onwards, opening several gashes in its side and staining the ground with Fiend blood.

Yennefer lets herself descend far away from Fringilla and Jaskier, drawing the Fiend away from her companions. The Fiend limps towards her, rage-filled but slow now. Yennefer smiles sweetly at it as it approaches her warily.

Its teeth are mere inches from her face when she lets the boulder that she broke her ribs against drop on its head. She’d been holding it above the Fiend’s head since she’d brought herself back to the ground, but had waited to drop it mainly for the look of anticipation on Jaskier’s face. It was much too amusing to let it end too soon.

The Fiend is enormous, but the rock is bigger. The Fiend collapses beneath it, crushed instantly. It’s a quick death, in the end.

“Yennefer!” Jaskier has already dropped to the floor and jumps into her arms before the Fiend stops twitching. “I knew you’d do it!” 

Yennefer spins him around in the air, feeling the satisfying warmth of him against her. He’s comfortingly solid in her grip. This close, with her powers heightened, she can feel again the love flowing from him towards her. There’s so much, in fact, that she doesn’t understand how she missed it before. Honey and lemon, the trademark scents of Jaskier, fill her nose. She inhales deeply.

“Call me Yez, Jayjay” she tells him.

He pulls back enough to grin at her before closing the distance between them for a kiss. Yenn’s fingers tangle in his hair, holding him in place. Jaskier hums contentedly into the kiss, scrambling to grip her more closely.

After a long time, Yennefer pulls back. She rests her forehead against his, grinning.

“Let’s go and find ourselves a Witcher and a Princess.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt and Ciri are almost at Kaer Morhen. they'll probably make it there without any issues, right?
> 
> ...right?

The morning air is cold and perfect, bringing the scent of winter that is leaf mulch and frost and the promise of snow that the wind brings as it blows down from the mountains. The sun peeks over the horizon, touching the world lightly as if frightened of leaving a bruise. There’s no one around for miles, the only sounds Roach’s hoofbeats as she trots along the frozen dirt road.

The town of Aard Carraigh appears in the distance, still too far away for human eyes to see but easy enough for a Witcher to pick out. It’s taken them longer to get here than he’d hoped; they had to take a ridiculous number of detours and evasive manoeuvres to throw off the numerous mercenaries, soldiers, secret agents, Royal emissaries and bloody-minded opportunists who all want to capture the Princess Cirilla to use for their own ends. 

Renfri had told him once that Greater and Lesser Evil lived in plain sight, but True Evil existed too, biding its time and looming dark and threatening in the shadows. He’d scoffed at her at the time; now he believes her. He would send a silent internal apology to her, wherever her spirit ended up, but he stops himself. He has no right to disturb her rest.

He blinks the thought away as best he can. They just need to make a quick stop for supplies in Aard Carraigh and then they’ll be in the mountains, where very few would dare to follow. It’s been a difficult journey but now, seeing the village in the distance, he feels like they might just make it. Geralt does not, however, allow himself a sigh of relief. He won’t do that until they’re both safely at Kaer Morhen.

Ciri is asleep in the saddle in front of him, huddled in his cloak. The fact that she’s comfortable enough with him to fall asleep like this, with her back pressed against him and his arms bracketing her, makes something warm stir in his chest almost painfully. She snuffles in her sleep as Geralt wraps his cloak around her mores securely. A robin perches on a branch they’re passing for a moment and chirps at him aggressively, chest puffed out, before taking flight once more.

It’s a wonderful moment, almost perfect. Which is how Geralt knows that something is wrong.

He turns his head as if working a crick from his neck after a bad night’s sleep on the hard forest floor, subtly scenting the air and listening as hard as he can. Nothing seems amiss; all his senses are telling him he’s along on the road. And yet…

He ducks as an arrow whooshes through the air where his head had been just a moment ago.

“Fuck.”

From behind rocks and trees and seemingly thin air, some fortysomething warriors appear, battle-ready and armed to the teeth. Geralt curses, mind whirring as he tries to come up with a plan. He would jump off Roach and send her galloping off with Ciri to safety while he dealt with the threat, but the circle of foes has closed around them before he has time to react. Whichever way he sent her, he’d be pushing her into their arms.

His instincts tell him to stay on Roach for the height advantage that being in the saddle would give him in the fight, but that would mean drawing their blows to wards Ciri. Besides, a mount is cumbersome in a melee; they can’t turn easily, and survival in battle often depends more on the blows you manage to dodge than the hits you manage to land on your opponents. He dismounts, unsheathing his iron sword – something else that’s less than ideal, as a short sword is better for close combat, but beggars can’t be choosers – as he goes. The movement wakes Ciri, who rubs her eyes with a grumble. He whispers an apology, watches as her eyes go wide as she takes in the danger that surrounds them.

“It’s okay,” he tells her in his most reassuring voice. He doesn’t think it will be particularly effective, but it wins him a small smile as if she trusts him. Geralt thinks he would do anything to make sure she smiled every day. But how much opportunity for smiles will this throneless Princess have as a Witcher’s Child Surprise? He blinks, pushing the thought from his head impatiently; now is not the time.

He turns to take in the people surrounding him. They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, all of them in efficient defensive stances that prove they are used to real combat. He can’t make out any weak links, any member of this ambush who looks wet behind the ears or liable to stupid acts of bravery that he can exploit for his own ends. Geralt can’t win this fight, he knows. But if he can make a gap in their circle, cause enough of a distraction that Ciri can get away… that would be something. Maybe one of his brothers will find her and take her to Kaer Morhen, finish what Geralt could not. It’s a nice thought.

“Give us the girl and you’ll be allowed to live.” One of the aggressors says. Geralt recognises the black armour of Nilfgaard – how have they got this far North? – but not all the soldiers are Nilfgaardian. Geralt spots the fur, leather and squirrel tails of the Scoia’tael on the less well-turned-out humanoids that make out the bulk of the company. So Nilfgaard has recruited a Squirrel Commando. That is very bad; Scoia’tael are much more deadly than a Nilfgaardian squadron. Geralt grips his sword more tightly.

“Didn’t you hear us, Witcher? Give her up and you’ll keep your life.”

“Leave us alone and I’ll let _you_ keep _your_ life,” Geralt growls, lip curling sardonically.

He should have picked up on the ambush sooner, he chastises himself. If he had he’d have been able to take some potions, make a plan of attack, to choose the ground on which he’d make his stand. Stupid. Vesemir will be disappointed.

“This is your last warning, Witcher,” the Nilfgaardian says. She raises her hand and the Scoia’tael next to her raises their bow, arrow notched, and draws back the string.

Geralt says nothing.

The Scoia’tael looses her arrow. Geralt casts Quen around Ciri and Roach as the arrow whistles through the air towards him. When he’s sure the shielding Sign has been cast effectively, he moves his sword lightning-fast to deflect the shaft with his blade. He uses the momentum of the movement to spin and slice the elf creeping up beside him across the chest, feeling the hot splash of their blood hit his armour as they fall. He ducks as he hears another arrow screeching through the air towards him and hears a _thunk_ and a scream as it hits the Nilfgaardian behind him.

Geralt stops thinking after that, instinct taking over as he _slices parries thrusts blocks hits without looking feels blood that’s not his mix with his own as it runs down his face and armour…_

He barely registers his adversaries as they fall; Nilfgaardians, elves, a dwarf. He tries not to look at their faces as they drop to the bloody ground, and fails.

After a while, the enemies stop coming. The battle haze lifts and it’s not until he nearly keels over that he realises he’s taken some serious damage. He looks down and curses; his right thigh is sliced open with a curving cut that starts at the front and works its way down and around behind his knee. it must have severed some muscle or tendon because any tiny bit of weight he puts on it threatens to see him drop to the ground. He can still fight on one leg if he has to, but blood is pouring from the wound at a worrying rate even for a Witcher. He won’t remain conscious for much longer if he keeps losing blood this fast.

Geralt looks around, panting and standing awkwardly with his weight on his one good leg, and sees that he’s standing in a circle of fallen enemies – but not enough of them. There are still more than twenty opponents left standing, almost all of them aiming arrows at him. He can’t dodge and deflect them all, and he’s already feeling lightheaded at the loss of blood. He has to do something _now._

“Geralt,” Ciri whispers, her voice cracking under the weight of her terror.

“Archers take aim!” A Scoia’tael orders. Geralt raises his sword.

“Hold your fire!” A Nilfgaardian-accented voice orders. The owner of the voice steps forward from his place behind the guards. He looks like he’s just noticed a particularly foul smell, but from the comfortable way the expression sits on his features, Geralt’s willing to bet that it’s just the way this soldier’s face falls. Luckily, most of his visage is obscured by the cheek guards of his helmet, but the bird wings attached to it tell Geralt that he’s an officer, and a high-ranking one at that…

Ciri sees the man. Ciri screams. It’s not one of her earth-shattering screams, the ones her Power manifests itself in – which is a shame, the blast would be useful in taking out some of their enemies. She screams like she does every night without fail when the nightmares come to her, like she’s terrified and helpless. It’s the worst sound Geralt has ever heard, and some deep part of him promises silently that the person who inspires that scream is going to _die._

“You there,” the newcomer calls. Once, a few years ago, Jaskier had described Valdo Marx’s voice as _eminently punchable._ Geralt had laughed, asking how exactly Jaskier thought he was going to punch a _sound._ But, on hearing this officer talk, Geralt finally understands what the bard meant; he’d punch this man’s arrogant voice if he could. “Witcher. Surely we can come to some arrangement.”

“Nilfgaardian. I’m sure we can. How does my blade through your gut sound?”

The officer sneers, and Geralt discovers that the man’s mouth, like his voice, is also eminently punchable.

“Have it your way. Archers! Aim!”

Geralt casts Quen around himself, turning the arrows harmlessly aside. The punchable Nilfgaardian growls and orders: “Again! He’ll tire before we do.”

Geralt knows he’s right. He’s already tiring from maintaining the Quen shield around Ciri and Roach, and the loss of blood from his leg wound is weakening him further by the second. The Scoia’tael surrounding them loose another round of arrows, and Geralt manages to summon another shield as they do, but it’s not as effective as his previous ones. One shaft makes it through and he has to dodge to the side to avoid it, hissing in pain as it jars his wounded leg, making him stagger.

He thinks, absently, of Yennefer. He has no doubt that she’s forgotten about him, moved on and put him from her mind. But he still regrets the hurt he caused her, however fleeting. He thinks of the way she is so fucking talented, and how terrifyingly clever she is, the way it made him want to get smarter so he might have more of a chance to keep up with her, some of the time at least. And, because he’s selfish, he wishes he’d got to see her once more. To apologise.

Well. If he’s wishing for things, he wishes she were here now and inclined to help him with the twenty-arrows-pointed-at-him-at-once issue. _Maybe you should have given her a reason to want to help you then, instead of fucking up her life by bonding her to someone like you,_ a vicious voice whispers in the back of his mind. He knows it’s right. He can’t pretend that he’s not getting his just desserts. He just wishes Ciri, innocent as she is, hadn’t got dragged down with him.

The Scoia’tael prepare to shoot.

He also thinks of Jaskier, which makes no sense. It does, however, prove without a shadow of a doubt that he is definitely disgustingly selfish. And yet Geralt longs for the bard too. For the comfort of his presence, his chatter, his pettiness and skill at talking himself out of trouble almost as fast as he can talk himself _into_ trouble. But it’s good that he’s not here; Jaskier would stand no chance in a situation like this, except maybe as a distraction.

When he first hears the singing approaching from the roadside, he thinks he’s hallucinating from the blood loss. There’s a worryingly large dark stain spreading around the packed dirt of the road beneath Geralt’s feet, growing at a distressing rate as more and more blood seeps down his leg and onto the ground. But the singing just gets louder, the voice is unmistakable even as it slurs as if the singer is deep in his cups, and Geralt’s heart lifts even as his stomach drops. He closes his eyes and groans.

 _“‘Cause you all know that this bard_  
_loves ladies from Nilfgaard_  
_‘cause Nilfgaard can kiss my…_ Geralt!”

“Jaskier,” Geralt opens his eyes to see that half of the Scoia’tael archers are now aiming at the bard. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Jaskier continues towards them, apparently even more oblivious to the danger-bordering-on-certain-death-situation than he normally is. His cheeks are flushed like he’s well and truly drunk, doublet undone and hanging open, leaving his vulnerable chest exposed. He stumbles as he walks, giving a drunken wave so effusive he nearly overbalances and only just manages to avoid falling flat on his face. The Scoia’tael and Nilfgaardians watch in disbelief.

“Geralt! Hello! What’s it been? Months? Years?”

Jaskier sways to the side, narrowly avoiding another arrow that buries itself in the dirt between his boots.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says through gritted teeth. From the corner of the eye, he sees another archer prepare to shoot Jaskier, this time aiming for the chest. He wants to do something, but the vertigo caused by blood loss means he’s having trouble just standing still. “Run!”

“What?”

“Run!”

The Scoia’tael shoots to kill.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt is wounded and surrounded by enemies that he can't defeat. will Yennefer and Jaskier manage to save him before it's too late?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mild spoilers for books and potentially show? more alluded to than outright stated but i don't want to annoy anyone!
> 
> also i have no idea what to write next so if there's something you'd particularly like to see/read, please let me know in the comments!

“Give us the girl and you’ll be allowed to live,” the Nilfgaardian blocking the road demands.

“Fuck’s sake,” Yennefer breathes from where they stand concealed by the trees that line the roadside. “I should have known that making it to Kaer Morhen without taking on an army too much to ask of Geralt of fucking Rivia.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Jaskier says lightly from beside her, taking in the nearly fifty armed and dangerous warriors that Geralt is facing down. “He seems like he’s got this covered to me. I think I saw a tavern back in that last village; shall we head back there?”

“Your faith in him is misguided,” Yennefer tells him as she reaches over to muss his hair, safe in the knowledge that he can’t squawk at her for it without giving away their position. Jaskier pushes her off with a sour look and quickly starts combing his hair with his fingers to repair the damage.

Fringilla rolls her eyes beside them. She’s no longer bound by ropes, but the Dimeritium shackles still adorn her wrists. They are spent, no longer stockpiling her Chaos after Yennefer harvested it to use against the Fiend, but they are still effective in stopping Fringilla from accessing her magic.

The memory of Fringilla, curled in on herself on the floor after Yennefer had taken her Chaos, flares in her mind’s eye. She had felt more than a little satisfied standing over Fringilla, feeling some sort of poetic justice after all the times that Fringilla had drained _her._

“Yeah, you can dish it out but you can’t take it, can you?” Jaskier had said as he stood with Yennefer over the prone mage. His pettiness combined with a protective streak is in equal parts endearing and amusing, seeing as the bard tends to attach himself to people who in no way need protecting. Still, he’d extended a hand to Fringilla to help her up from the damp forest floor.

“That’s Megan in charge.” Gill says, pulling Yennefer back to the present as she points to the Nilfgaardian who spoke. “She’s not to be trifled with. Your Witcher is in trouble.”

Yennefer and Jaskier share an amused look.

“Yes, I’m sure it’s very worrying.” Yenn says with a dismissive wave of her hand. She turns back to Jaskier. “We need a plan.”

From the road, they hear the unmistakable sounds of combat start up. There’s the screech of steel-on-steel, the screams of the fallen and wounded, the stomach-turning _squelch_ as sharp metal rends soft flesh. Fringilla watches in awe, mouth hanging open, as Yennefer and Jaskier plot.

“They don’t know we’re here, Yenn. We should use that: the element of surprise.”

She nods. “It sounds like Geralt is thinning their numbers a bit. That’s helpful. I’ll take out as many as I can remotely first, and then we’ll close in and deal with the rest.”

“Urgh!” Fringilla leaps aside as a dismembered hand flies past them. Yennefer and Jaskier ignore it.

“They’ll probably notice several soldiers dropping in quick succession,” Jaskier muses, scratching his chin.

“Yes,” Yennefer concedes. “That’s why we’ll need a distraction.”

“A distraction! Yes, good. So, what, will you…” he twirls his fingers in what he thinks is a magical way, “cast an illusion to get their attention and then, while they’re looking the other way, bam! Fireball!”

Yennefer smiles at him sweetly. “No illusions. I’ll need to reserve my Chaos. We’ll have to find another way to distract them.”

“Right, yes, right, so how can we…” he looks around for a moment as if searching the undergrowth for an appropriate distraction, then freezes as realisation dawns. He turns back to her with a pale, stony expression. “I’m the distraction, aren’t I?”

She pats him on the cheek. “Nicely volunteered, Jaskier.”

Fringilla, still watching the fight, hisses in sympathy at some wound that’s been dealt on the battlefield a few feet away. “Your Witcher just took a hit to the leg! It looks nasty. He could bleed out if he’s not careful!”

“Meh, he’s fine,” Jaskier says without turning around. “Yennefer, I’m not sure…

“Look!” Fringilla points. They all turn to see the familiar form of Cahir, last seen torturing Jaskier for information on Geralt, squaring up opposite the Witcher. All three of them stiffen, an aura of palpable hatred thickening the air around them.

“I’ll do it,” Jaskier breathes, his eyes lingering on the smug look on Cahir’s face. The look of anger is jarring in on his usually amiable features, but it clears as he puts on a cheerful voice. “I should make a good distraction. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being the centre of attention.”

He reaches for the flask on his hip that Yennefer knows contains an eye-wateringly strong cherry vodka. He takes a swig, then pours out a little onto his hands and rubs it into his face, neck, chest and hair. 

“Urgh. You want some?” He offers the flask to Yennefer, who shakes her head.

“What are you doing?”

Jaskier shrugs, taking another sip of booze, then slaps his face a few times to give himself the flush of someone several sheets to the wind. “People are more likely to laugh at you than attack you if they think you’re blind drunk. And, thrilled as I am to have been chosen to save the day, I’d rather not die in the process. It’ll help sell the illusion if I smell like a brewery.”

Yennefer nods. She reaches out and tugs his doublet undone, pulls his undershirt aside so more of his chest is on show.

“Yennefer, I know I’m being very brave and sexy at the moment but now is not the time to be undressing me,” he tells her with a cheeky grin that she wants to bite. 

“Shut up, Jaskier. I’m just helping make your disguise more convincing – not that you need it. Playing a foolhardy drunk isn’t really acting at all for you, is it? For you it’s just a normal Tuesday.”

He splutters at her in mock-annoyance. Yennefer feels her fondness for him curling tight and warm around her heart, and pulls him in for a kiss. She can taste the cherry vodka on her lips.

Fringilla clears her throat. Jaskier pulls back.

“Right, well. I suppose I’ll off them? Ooh, wait, we should have a code word! Or a signal! Something that I’ll do to let you know it’s time to swoop in and save me and Cirilla! And Geralt, I suppose, if you have time.”

Yennefer raises her eyebrow at him. “I imagine that when you start screaming I’ll get the message.”

Jaskier laughs, but there’s panic in his eyes behind the bravado. She forgets, sometimes, that he’s not as indestructible as he pretends to be.

“Ask him how long it’s been since you saw him last. I’ll come for you.” She cups his cheek in her hand. “You’ll be careful.” It’s not a question; it’s an order.

Jaskier turns his head to kiss her palm where it rests against his face. “Of course.”

He turns, allowing his posture to slouch, and sets off towards the road that’s become quiet in the aftermath of the fighting. He walks like he is truly smashed, singing and slurring his words as he goes.

 _“’Cause you all know that this bard_  
 _loves ladies from Nilfgaard_  
 _‘cause Nilfgaard can kiss my…_ Geralt!”

Fringilla steps beside her as they watch him go. 

“They’ll kill him,” she says.

“They won’t,” Yennefer promises. She’ll decimate anyone who tries.

“Let me help,” Fringilla whispers.

Yennefer snorts. “No thanks. I don’t much feel like being stabbed in the back.”

“Listen, Yenna. I don’t like Cahir any more than you do. I could have escaped from you so many times these last weeks, but I didn’t. I let you harvest my Chaos. What more will it take for you to trust me?”

Yennefer pierces into Fringilla’s mind in a rush. The other mage gasps but doesn’t resist, letting Yennefer in. She doesn’t have time for a thorough look, but there is no obvious sign that Fringilla intends to betray them.

“What’s it been? Months? Years?” Jaskier says loudly from the road. She’s out of time.

“Fine,” Yennefer pulls the manacles from Fringilla’s wrists. “If you betray us, you _will regret it.”_

Fringilla rubs at the sores on her wrists that are the shackles’ parting gift. “I know.”

Yennefer turns back around and focuses her Chaos, using it to turn aside an arrow that was heading straight for Jaskier. Then she reaches into the Scoia’tael at the back of the group, finds their neck, and concentrates until she feels the _snap._ She keeps her hold on them, lowering them to the ground gently so the sound of their collapse doesn’t alert their comrades. Geralt’s medallion must hum at the magic, he must pick up on the sound of one of the heartbeats that surround him stopping, but he does not betray any sign of surprise.

Jaskier is still babbling and pacing, gesticulating grandly, doing an excellent job of keeping the attention of the enemies that surround them. She hears him loftily ask _what is time, anyway?_ as she kills her third Nilfgaardian, and can’t suppress as smile at his antics.

Yennefer has killed eight of the enemies surrounding Jaskier, Geralt, Ciri and Roach before any of their companions notice anything amiss. Someone eventually picks up on something, though, as a shout goes up to sound the alarm before she can gently lower the last one to the floor. She lets them drop unceremoniously, stealth being unnecessary now, and bolts for the road.

As she runs, she sees Geralt finally succumb to the bloodloss. He drops in a heap to the ground, unable to even control his fall as he hits the floor. Jaskier gives up on his drunken pretence; moving quickly and gracefully, he scoops up a sword from one of the Nilfgaardians Geralt killed earlier and stands over Geralt, in front of Ciri and Roach. Yennefer has seen what he can do in a tight corner with half a handle-less sword, and would not approach the bard now if she were a Scoia’tael; the bard looks feral.

Yennefer throws up a shield around them, just in case, replacing Geralt’s Quen that was protecting Ciri and Roach but which disappeared as he lost consciousness. She picks up a sword of her own from the ground, turning to stab one assailant while blasting another hard enough to throw them across the road and into the trunk of a tree. They slump lifelessly to the ground.

Yennefer helps several more soldiers shuffle this mortal coil with steel or Chaos, feeling the blood pumping and adrenaline rushing in her veins as she does so. She risks a look over at Jaskier and the others, checking they’re alright, when she sees the bard look at something behind her. From the way his face drops, it’s not good.

Yennefer spins just in time to see Fringilla reach Cahir. The officer’s two personal guards that stand protectively behind him bow as they recognise the Emperor’s mage. Fringilla has obviously taken a moment and some Chaos to see to her appearance; her silver mage uniform is pristine, rather than travel-stained and torn as it had been. She smiles at Cahir beatifically.

“Cahir.”

The Nilfgaardian rounds on her. “Fringilla! Where the hell were you? We waited at Brokilon for hours for your portal – those fucking Dryads killed almost half our number with their godsdamned arrows, and we never even caught a glimpse of one of them to fight back! We’d have been truly fucked if we hadn’t run into a Squirrel commando, and it’s only a miracle that we ran into a Witcher that called himself a Cat. He was only too happy to tell us where the Wolves spend every winter, and pointed out that it’s where the White Wolf would take a Princess he wanted to hide. We headed here immediately. But why didn’t you get us back to the camp?”

“I’m sorry, Cahir. I was… unavoidably detained. The prisoners escaped. But, as you can see, I’ve brought them back to you. And you have the Witcher and the Princess now. The Great Sun’s plan cannot be prevented from coming to fruition.”

Yennefer feels her fury rising steadily. Fringilla betrayed them after all. After they jumped off a cliff to save her, after they kept her alive when she had given them no reason to and it would have been so much easier to let her die. Her anger builds to a tidal wave that threatens to sweep away everything in her path, including herself.

“Fringilla,” she grits out through clenched teeth. “You chose wrong.”

Fringilla looks at her from beneath an arched brow. “I don’t think I did.”

“I’ll dispatch the witch and the bard, now that we have no further use for them.” Cahir steps forwards, unsheathing his sword. Yennefer raises her own, and waits.

Cahir is only a few paces away, sneering unpleasantly, when a sound makes him turn. His two personal guards have been felled simultaneously, now lying grey and shrivelled at Fringilla’s feet. Gill smiles, power crackling over her skin.

“What…” Cahir chokes out. Fringilla gestures at a Scoia’tael, whose terrified screech is cut off when they collapse with a crushed skull. 

Yennefer takes advantage of Cahir’s distraction to slip her sword between his ribs; not deep enough to kill, but more than enough to incapacitate him. 

“I suppose now is as good a time as any to tell you I’m resigning,” Fringilla tells him conversationally as he drops to his knees. Cahir chokes as Gill looks back to Yennefer. “Let’s finish this, Yenna.”

Fringilla and Yennefer make short work of the remaining ambush. Soon the only people left alive on the road are the two mages, a princess, a bard, a horse, and a Witcher. And one last Nilfgaardian.

Yennefer steps up to him.

“I can see your mind, Cahir,” she lets her sword tip rest at the dip of his collarbone. She doesn’t even try to hide the disgust in her voice, though she makes sure to speak quietly enough that Cirilla cannot hear. “I know about what happened that night at Cintra. I know how you’ve hunted a frightened child across half the continent. I know why you want to take her back to Nilfgaard, like she’s some fucking _gift_ for your Emperor.”

“I…” Cahir begins.

“No.”

Yennefer and Fringilla work in unison. They reach out, hands synchronised as they trace the same sigil to channel their Chaos. Cahir’s mouth works silently for a moment as the magic works. He falls motionless to the ground, his body disintegrating into dust that blows away on the light morning breeze.

Yennefer turns. Jaskier has Ciri tucked into his side, her head buried in his chest to hide her face from the fighting. Yennefer’s glad; no child should see what just happened on this road, though something tells her that this particular child has seen too much already. She moves towards them, leaving Fringilla to hang back and check that all their opponents are definitely deceased. 

The arm that Jaskier doesn’t have wrapped tightly around Ciri’s shoulders is digging through Geralt’s saddlebag which he’s laid on the ground beside him. He’s already tied a tourniquet at the top of the Witcher’s thigh to stop the bleeding, Yennefer notes with approval. As she watches, he finds the phial he’s looking for and pulls it from the bag, thumbing the cork out and pouring the iridescent contents of the small glass vessel down Geralt’s throat.

There’s a long moment where the Continent holds its breath. Then Geralt coughs, followed by a groan. He screws up his face as if in pain, and attempts to sit up.

“Geralt!” Ciri disentangles herself from Jaskier and throws herself at Geralt, hugging him tightly around the neck. Tentatively, the Witcher brings up a hand to stroke through her hair. Yennefer can see that the blood leaking from his wound is already slowing.

“I’m alright, Ciri,” Geralt murmurs. Then he seems to realise they have an audience. The look of surprise on his face as he takes in first Jaskier, then Yennefer, then Fringilla, is worth every hardship Yennefer has gone through to get to this point. Jaskier bursts into peals of laughter at the sight of it, earning himself an angry huff from Geralt. Then Geralt’s eyes snag on Yennefer and Jaskier’s hands, which are joined with fingers interlaced, and his bemused expression returns.

“Close your mouth, Geralt. Something might fly into it.” Yennefer drawls. She pulls Jaskier closer to her, though, just to see the way Geralt’s eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. She turns to Cirilla. “Are you alright?” 

The Princess clutches more tightly at Geralt’s armour, staring up at her with frightened eyes, and nods.

“Good.”

“We did just save you, Geralt. You’re welcome,” Jaskier says with an eyeroll.

“Hmm.” 

Geralt stands, only staggering slightly as he keeps his weight off his bad leg. Yennefer knows better than to tell him to rest.

“How did you…” Geralt begins.

“Oh, it’s an excellent story, involving kidnap, torture, a daring escape, more kidnap, jumping off a cliff, hypothermia, a Fiend, love declarations…” Jaskier is building up to an epic retelling of their recent adventures that will last hours, Yennefer can tell. She cuts him off. 

“It doesn’t matter. We’re here. We saved you. We’re done. I assume you can make it to Kaer Morhen on your own now.” Yennefer turns to depart. To her surprise, Jaskier moves with her, leaving the Witcher behind them both. “Goodbye, Geralt.”

“Wait!”

Yennefer exchanges a look with Jaskier, a moment of silent communication, before they both turn back to Geralt. She imagines how they look to the Wolf, side-by-side and stained with blood from protecting the ones they love. They must look like a united front. Like a team. She finds she likes it.

“I… what happened on the mountain. Forgive me.” Ciri is hugging his side, looking up at him with wonder. His hand is resting reassuringly on her shoulder, his thumb tracing comforting patterns over the material of her cloak. His eyes flit between Jaskier’s face and Yennefer’s, a crease between his brow as he tries to read their expressions. She sees the fear, the agony behind those topaz irises.

“You’re sorry?” Yennefer asks.

“Yes.”

“For…?” Jaskier prompts.

Geralt takes a deep breath, steeling himself. Yennefer does not pity him. He _can_ use his words, she knows. He just chooses not to, if he doesn’t trust who he’s with. Or if he doesn’t trust himself. Yennefer has no patience with either of these scenarios.

“I’m sorry for the wish. And for not telling you about it, Yenn. I did it to try and save you, because once it was free the Djinn might have killed you in revenge, but it couldn’t if your fate was bound to that of one of its masters. But you deserved to know. I should have told you.”

Yennefer nods. It’s not forgiveness, but acknowledgement. She thinks it may grow to forgiveness, in time.

“And?” She demands.

“I’m sorry for what I said, Jaskier. You’re my very best friend in the whole wide world. My life would be poorer without you.”

Jaskier turns to Yennefer. “What do you think, Yez? Good enough?”

Yennefer considers for a long moment, drawing out Geralt’s discomfort.

“Good enough, Jayjay,” she concedes.

Jaskier runs to Geralt, tugging her along behind him, and wraps himself around the Witcher in a hug. Yennefer allows the bard to tug her in close too, lets Geralt’s tentative arm snake loosely around her waist. Jaskier peppers Geralt’s face with kisses before claiming the Witcher’s mouth with his own, and that… that is very much alright with Yennefer. More than alright. Distractingly alright, actually. Certainly something she’d like to see again, in more private circumstances without a ten-year-old as an audience. She’s had Jaskier, and of course she’s had Geralt, but both of them together, well…

She closes her eyes and inhales the honey, lemon, and now stale vodka scent that is Jaskier as it mixes with the leather, sweat and horse aroma that always accompanies Geralt to a greater or lesser extent.

“You both need a bath.” She says as she pulls herself away. Ciri nods in agreement. Yennefer likes her already.

“There are baths at Kaer Morhen,” Geralt suggests tentatively. Jaskier’s grin turns almost predatory as he looks between Geralt and Yennefer.

“Oh, and what will the three of us manage to do to occupy ourselves over a long winter at a Witcher’s keep with nothing but a bath to entertain ourselves…?” He mock-laments. Yennefer pinches his arm.

“Um…”

They turn to see Fringilla lingering awkwardly a few feet away. Yennefer feels Geralt slip into a defensive stance, ready to attack if the mage in Nilfgaard’s colours gets too close.

“Down, Geralt,” Yennefer orders. “She’s with us. Alright, Gill?”

Fringilla nods. “They’re all dead.”

“Good. Thanks! Is this, uh… is this where we part ways?” Jaskier says, interrupting the awkward silence.

Fringilla nods. “I’m going to head South. The Emperor didn’t want the Battle of Sodden Hill, you know. But Cahir was determined to push ahead. I’ll try and bring the army back under control, get them to retreat like the Emperor wanted. I will _make_ them retreat.”

If she’s expecting thanks, she doesn’t get any. She tries again.

“I won’t ask where you’re going…”

“Good,” Yennefer interrupts swiftly. “Because we won’t tell you.”

Fringilla nods, looking down.

“…but, if you need help. You could send a message to me. I might be able to lend a hand.” Yennefer relents.

“Thank you, Yenna.”

“No problem, Gill.”

Fringilla takes one last look at them, then traces a portal and steps through and away.

“So,” Jaskier sing-songs, rubbing his hands together as if in anticipation of a treat. “To Kaer Morhen?”

Yennefer’s violet eyes meet ones of amber, then ones of blue. “To Kaer Morhen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! constructive criticism welcome!
> 
> [spoilers for book and maybe show below]
> 
> that's right, i pried his redemption arc from Cahir's cold dead hands and gave it to Fringilla because he _does not deserve it._ i'm not even a little bit sorry.


End file.
